


All You Get is Sound

by kiddle



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - High School, Band camp, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-08-30 13:11:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 50,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8534431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiddle/pseuds/kiddle
Summary: A month ago, Harry kissed his best friend. He didn't think it through at the time. His girlfriend just cheated on him, he was drunk and vulnerable, and Louis was telling him everything he needed to hear. Now he can't stop thinking about how much he wants it to happen again.Louis is not in love with his best friend. There's no way it could ever work out, he tells himself over and over. Besides, Harry probably doesn't even remember the kiss happened. It shouldn't have happened. He can't lose Harry because of it.As competition season comes to an end, the pair are about to leave on their school's year-end band trip- the final one they'll be attending before heading off to university. Spending that much constant time together can create a lot of tension, both negative and otherwise.





	1. Intonation

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic came from nostalgia for my own high school band class, which was not too long ago, believe me. That class was always the most entertaining and included quite the cast of characters in itself, some even inspiring some of the original characters in this story.
> 
> I want to keep the length of the story short, so it should be around 50k words by the time it's finished. There are quite a few original characters in this just because I'm personally more comfortable writing with my own rather than using actual people in the member's lives. Please forgive my Canadian ignorance for any inaccuracies in the UK education system that I'm sure will come up. I tried to do my research, but Wikipedia only helps so much.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the excessive drama, attempt at humour, and a whole lot of pettiness from a certain character*. This fic took a lot more time to write than I intended, but I think I've grown quite fond of it. 
> 
> *Louis. The character is Louis. Obviously.

The atmosphere was rowdy and bustling as the band room filled with students setting up for the afternoon lesson. Harry was sat on his chair on the centre tier, long limbs confined to a small seat with his clarinet case open on his lap. He was pushing the bell onto the body of the instrument. His reed was hanging out of his mouth to moisten while his eyes focused on lining up the pieces.

Surrounding Harry, his classmates were yelling and joking with each other while dragging chairs and stands across the carpet, accidentally hitting the other chairs and stands as they made their way to the opposite side of the room. And of course there was the obnoxious practicing of individual parts that sounded nothing but disheveled when heard all together. At this point however, after being in this class with more or less the same people for seven years, it was nothing Harry wasn’t used to by now.

At the front of the room, Miss Hammond, their much admired conductor, was stepping on to the small platform to begin the lesson. This was the signal for everyone to get to their seats and quiet down, but full attention was never obtained until the first warm-up began.

"Concert B flat," Miss Hammond instructed, raising her hands. The students followed with their instruments, slowly moving up and down the scale and increasing tempo with each round. Harry could tell immediately that his instrument was out of tune. He tried to adjust the barrel slightly as they played, picking back up on the sixth note. When the last note came to an end, Miss Hammond made a circle gesture to cut everyone off.

"Alright, the tuner is going around so pull out our festival pieces in the meantime." She placed the tuner on one of the flute player's stands and walked towards her desk to give the students a moment.

Miss Hammond was a small woman, young and easily mistaken as a student herself in the halls at school. She had straight black hair that was always kept in a tight bun. Often she’d stick her baton through it, forget it was even there, and end up conducting with a pencil if no one pointed it out to her. If you asked anyone in band, they’d likely say Hammond was their favourite teacher. The environment of her classes was usually relaxed and she treated her students more like her own peers to form a mutual respect.            

When a crash sounded from the back of the class, all eyes turned towards one of the trumpet players, Niall. He was in his last year as well, but looked rather young for his age with shaggy blonde hair and short stature. At the moment, his folder and sheet music were scattered on the ground. The top of the stand was angled perpendicular to the floor, causing the fall. 

"Shit," he mumbled as he reached down the pick up the papers. Zayn, the saxophone player who sat on the tier ahead of him, crouched down to help collect the music. Zayn was known for being generally quiet and keeping to himself while Niall had an outwardly whimsical attitude that would accidentally bring attention to himself, like in this case.       

"Add another tally to the board!" Louis called up to Miss Hammond from the percussion section where he sat with his feet resting on an extra chair in front of him. A large grin spread across his face while Niall groaned. Miss Hammond rolled her eyes amusingly as she took out a green marker and added the 12th tally to the chart titled "Days Niall has Dropped His Music.” This became a running joke in the class.

When the tuner finally reached Harry, he played a C with the best tone he could foster, but he was still sharp. He pulled out the neck a few millimeters then tried again. The light on the tuner flashed green, spot on.      

"Have you handed in your money for the band trip yet?" Liam asked as Harry handed him the tuner. He was also a clarinet player, something he had to balance with being on the football team as well. The two of them had been friends since Liam joined band four years ago. Since they were both in their last year and Liam was a quick learner, they'd now often fight over solos and first clarinet pieces. The competition was all in good fun. At least that’s what they told themselves.

"Just yesterday, what about you?"

"Zayn and I stopped in at lunch,” he responded quickly, passing the tuner along to the saxophones.

Liam and Zayn had been dating almost a year now. During the year prior, they had become quite close friends and ended up getting together that summer. They spent the whole holiday together and, as much as they would deny it, everyone else could tell they were hooking up. When they were together they were always flirty and touchy. By the time they finally made it purposefully obvious by holding hands in the halls or sending one another off to class with a quick peck, their relationship was already old news.

“Louis was supposed to come with us too, but I assumed he was with you,” Liam continued. Harry nodded slowly, mind just returning from a faraway thought.

"Uh, yeah, should be pretty fun," Harry said as Liam passed the tuner along. He gave him an off look for the nonsensical remark, but disregarded it anyway.      

The band trip they were planning was mainly for the final festival they had been rehearsing for, but this year they also got to spend a couple of nights at a band camp (that Miss Hammond stressed several times would _not_ be like the movie). The camp was something that the group seemed to be both excited about, and also intrigued to exactly what events it would entail. They were leaving Thursday to get back Sunday, so it would be a short weekend getaway. Miss Hammond promised group activities and team building so the band learned how to work together. That was something they were less excited about, but it was a trip nonetheless.

As tuning continued, Gillian, the pixie-faced trombone player sitting behind Harry, started playing the beginning of the piece to practice her part, disrupting the semi-quiet room.         

"Oi, Zayn can't tune when you're blasting away over there," Louis called from his seat at the drum kit. She shot a glare in his direction before turning back around to look at Harry, waiting for him to say something. He never actually would take sides because the thing was, while Louis was his best friend, Gillian and Harry were kind of dating. Actually, they’d been together for about four months.

Harry liked Gillian, he really did. Sure she could be a bit demanding and controlling and maybe sometimes he wished she wouldn’t be so clingy, but they got on great. The problem, however, was there was someone Harry liked a bit more. And that someone happened to be his best friend.

If there was one person Gillian hated in this world, it was Louis. The feeling was mutual and may have stemmed from her complaining that Harry spent too much time with Louis when he could be spending that time with her. According to Gillian, that's what led to her cheating with some guy in her English class last month.

When the couple decided to just move past it, Harry in turn got an hour long lecture from Louis over half a bottle of whiskey they snuck up to Harry’s roof to drink. After complaining about his own breakup, Louis went on about why Harry deserved someone who would treat him with love and respect. Someone who would actually care about him and remain loyal. They were sitting so close and were slightly drunk and before they knew it they were kissing. Heated and careless and over too soon.

Louis left the next morning, too drunk to drive himself home the night before, and neither of them mentioned the kiss. In fact, not since it happened a month ago did they bring it up. But it was fine, Harry supposed, since everything remained normal between them. However, normal wasn’t exactly what he wanted anymore.

When the tuner made its full way around, the tuba player, Mason, brought it back to Miss Hammond's stand at the front so class could continue. She stood from her desk and walked towards the front with a stack of paper in her hands.    

"So, I've decided to let you pick your own roommates for the trip. I'm going to hand out these papers and I'd like you to put the name of one person you'd like to room with. The first three nights you'll be in rooms for four so I'll match pairs, but the rooms for the third night only have twins so that's when you'll be in partners. Any questions?"

"Yeah, can me and Amy share a room?" asked Chris, another saxophone player sitting beside Zayn. Chris was tall and rather built, perfect for his position as captain of the football team. His on-and-off girlfriend, Amy, blushed from the flute section up front, then quickly whipped around to shoot him a look.

"Yeah, right," Miss Hammond raised an unimpressed brow, "You have to room with the same gender. It's school policy. Anything else?"

A few students asked questions about busing and what to bring while the papers were being passed around. Harry scribbled down the name of the person he wanted to room with then handed it back to the girl walking around to collect them. On his stand, he noticed his phone light up with a text message. The name that showed up was _Louis_ with the sunglasses emoji next to it. Louis put it in his phone that way himself. He was always changing the way his name was written in Harry’s phone. Other emoji consisted of a snare drum, a football, a spider (after the new Spider-Man movie came out and they went to see it in the cinema together three times), and a blue heart. He changed it from the heart just last week.      

 

_Louis: so, who'd u pick?_

_Harry: hmm I thought Niall might make a good roommate._

_Louis: U sure? the lad has been single far too long. not sure you'd want to share a room with him._

_Harry: I mean I guess you'd be a good alternate choice then._

_Louis: good. I for one picked the second best looking guy in the room._

_Harry: who's the first?_

_Louis: me, obviously_

_Harry: don't make me regret picking you_

_Louis: well, I’d never regret picking you :*_

 

Trying his best to ignore what could be taken as flirting, Harry clicked his phone off and placed it face down on his stand. He could only hope his cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.

As the students were putting their instruments and folders away onto the shelves at the end of class, Miss Hammond demanded quiet for her to read out room assignments. Most of the group listened closely.

"...Amy and Sarah rooming with Casey and Gillian. And for the boys..." Harry was only half paying attention as he slid his reed into its case and fed a cleaning cloth through his clarinet.

"Liam and Mason rooming with Chris and Logan, Zayn and Niall rooming with Harry and Louis…"

Harry searched the room to meet Louis' eyes. He was sitting at the front near the white board in Miss Hammond's swivel chair, sending Harry an approving nod. The butterflies in his stomach were becoming harder to control, but he did his best to ignore them.

"How come you and Zayn aren't rooming together?" Harry asked Liam when they both got up to put their stands in the rack.

"We talked about it the other day and just decided to pick other people to save sitting through any possible awkward conversation with Miss Hammond."

"Oh, well, good idea I guess."

"I suppose,” Liam sighed, “It was Zayn's. Miss Hammond must’ve thought it was too since she assigned Zayn with you guys instead of me."

"It's not like you can't spend time together on the trip. Besides, you guys are always at each other's houses anyway. You probably need a break." Liam laughed at that as they walked back to the middle tier to get their chairs.

"But would've been nice to be together for all of it. You know?" Liam shrugged just as the bell rang for the end of the day. "See you around, Harry," he waved and rushed to catch up to Zayn at the door.  

The classroom emptied quickly, but Louis was always the last to leave. He was still seated on Miss Hammond's desk chair while she collected her music at the front. As Harry approached, he could hear a faint conversation going on between the two.          

"I'm just saying, I'm 18 now and we're going to be going out to dinner twice on the trip. I feel like I should be allowed at least one drink with my meal. It’s a holiday!”

"It's a school trip. If I can't drink, you can't drink," Miss Hammond said, a hint of humour in her voice.

Miss Hammond had a high tolerance for the students in her band class, the main one being Louis, who was known for his mischievous antics. She was the type of teacher that you could swear in front of and she wouldn't even mention it, which for a bunch of 15-18 year olds, is one of the coolest things you could do as a teacher.

"Ready to go?" Harry asked as he approached Louis from behind. He spun the chair around and grinned at him.

"Just as soon as I finish convincing Miss H, here-"

"There will be no convincing. Go to class. And get out of my chair," she said, shooing Louis away. He put his hands up in surrender as he stood up.

"Excuse me, Miss Hammond," Gillian spoke up, pushing in between Harry and Louis to get through to the desk. Her long and wildly curly, blonde hair hit Louis in the face as she did so. "I just had a few things I wanted to ask you about the piece I'm writing."      

"Sure, just give me a sec," Miss Hammond said as she typed up a quick email on her computer. Her thin hands flew over the keys.      

"Well, don't let us get in your way," Louis turned towards the door.

“Wait, Harry,” Gillian took his hand to get his attention. “Are you still coming over tonight?”

“I have a lot of homework, but how about tomorrow?” he offered instead.

“Okay, but don’t forget to call me later tonight.”

“Of course.”

She leaned in for a quick kiss before sending Harry off. Behind them, Louis started audibly gagging with a look of disgust, almost ready to keel over. When they pulled apart, Gillian shot him her usual icy glare.

“I really don’t know why you’re in band when you could’ve been the star of the drama class,” Harry commented as they walked up the stairs and towards the door.

"Wouldn’t want to make everyone else look bad,” Louis replied before turning around with a wave, “Have a good night, Miss H!"

"You too, boys."

The last class they had before the end of the day was chemistry, and thankfully Harry and Louis had it together. Because the day was nearing its end, the class always dragged on for what felt like hours, but was hardly more than one. To Louis, the only thing that could make chemistry bearable was a lab day, which today happened to be.

He and Harry strolled into the room just as the final bell rang. Louis took his seat next to Chris, who was not his first choice in a lab partner, but also not the worst. Harry’s partner was Liam, the lucky bastard. If only Louis hadn’t showed up late the first day with a to-go coffee cup in hand. Chris trailed in behind him, out of breath from rushing to get there. At least he looked like he put in an effort to get there on time, while Louis casually sipped his latte.

Louis only half paid attention as Mr Grainger explained the procedure to the class. This was by far Louis’ worst subject and he wasn’t going to pretend like he could salvage his grade this late in the year. When it was time to put on the safety goggles and get to work, he could only hope that Chris had some idea as to what they were doing.

“So I think we’re supposed to fill half of the first test tube with potassium iodide and fill the other half with potassium dichromide,” Chris tried to explain.

“Dichromate,” Louis corrected.

“What?”

“Never mind. What’s the exact measurements of each?”

“Half and half.”

Louis looked at the amount of dangerous chemicals and various test tubes in front of them and sighed. “Hoo boy…”

At the desk just ahead of them, Amy and Casey, another two girls from band, seemed to be getting on just fine with their experiment. According to Louis’ lab page, they were supposed to be identifying oxidizing and reducing agents. Figuring Amy, usually top of the class along with Gillian, would have some kind of idea of how to help them, he tried to get her attention. This proved harder than he thought as after calling her name three times, she was still whispering and giggling with Casey. Those two had come to be awful close friends since becoming lab partners.

“Can you give us a hand?” Louis asked when the two girls finally turned around.

“Just look in your textbook. The whole procedure is on page 254,” Casey informed him, sounding slightly irritated as if he was interrupting a crucial conversation.

“Did you bring a textbook?” he asked Chris, who shook his head. Of course Louis hadn’t brought his either. It’s not like the ever used the textbook in class anyway. Mr Grainger preferred teaching on the white board and with work sheets.

Feeling a tap on his shoulder, Louis turned around to see Harry holding out his textbook towards him, already turned to the correct page. He took it with a thankful smile and dramatically blurted, “God bless you!”

Even still, Louis and Chris managed to mess something up around step four that completely ruined the second half of their experiment. Mr Grainger, feeling generous, gave them a passing grade anyway. Both Harry and Liam, as well as Amy and Casey, got full marks. Louis found it hard to care. He was still practically failing anyway.

At the end of the day when Harry and Louis were walking down the hallway towards their lockers, both seemed unbothered by the way their arms kept brushing against each other. Don’t get him wrong, Harry definitely noticed, but if Louis didn’t mind, neither did he.

They rounded the corner and reached the green set of lockers down the arts wing of the building. Since they came to orientation together at the beginning of the year, they ended up with lockers right next to each other. Pretty convienient since they tended to spend every waking hour together that their schedules allowed anyway.

“Do you work tonight?” Harry asked as he spun the combination lock, getting one of the numbers a few ticks off the first time and having to retry. “You can come over if you want.”

“I had to pick up a shift at the store for four. Didn’t you just cancel on Gillian because you had too much homework?” Louis said as he pulled out his jacket and slammed the locker behind him. Harry took his History textbook to finish the reading he had to do before they made their way towards the doors.

“Yeah, but it’s actually not that much. I just wasn’t really in the mood to hang out with her.”

“Well, I have about an hour. You have food at your house?”

“As long as you didn’t eat it all yesterday.”

Just as they were about to reach the parking lot, a pair of arms wrapped around their shoulders and they were met with a strong, but not exactly bad smelling scent of cologne.

“So what’s the plan for tonight? Head to the park for a kick around? Get in some practicing before Thursday?” Niall asked boisterously, his voice loud enough for everyone around them to hear.

“Nah, man, I’ve gotta work,” Louis said. Niall turned his head towards Harry.

“Homework,” he shrugged, lifting up his textbook.

“Well then, if you’re both ditching me on this wonderful Monday night, then I think you owe me a ride home,” he grinned at Louis, flashing his teeth.

“You have legs. Walk home.”

“Aw come on! How come Harry has been getting a free ride home every day and you still make me constantly beg if I want one?” Niall complained.

“You’re lucky your house is on the way to Harry’s,” Louis said as they reached his freshly cleaned blue beater. The weather was so warm and sun was shining so bright it reflected off the parts of the paint that weren’t rusted, making Harry wonder if he should take Niall up on his offer of a footy match.

“I have a little tip for you Niall,” Harry leaned into his ear as if he had a secret to tell him, “Don’t constantly beg.”

His focused expression turned to an eye roll before he shouted “I call shot gun!” and headed for the passenger door.

Louis offered Harry an apologetic look. “Sorry! Can’t go against the rules of shot gun,” he said as he pressed the button on his keychain to unlock the doors.

By the time the three of them reached Niall's house, neither Harry or Louis could wait for him to get out of the car. The thing was, they loved Niall. They'd been good friends with him since primary school. The only problem was that sometimes he could be loud. And a little obnoxious. Sometimes. But they loved him, regardless.

As Louis pulled into the curb, another car parked behind them which Louis immediately recognized as Amy’s. He took a curious look at it in the rear view mirror before turning around to make sure his suspicions were correct.

“Expecting company?” Louis asked with a raised brow.

“Oh, yeah. She mentioned she might stop by.” Niall shrugged off the observation as he opened his door. Amy was still sitting in the driver’s seat of her car looking down at her lap, probably on her phone while she waited for Niall to walk to his house.

“And _she_ couldn’t give you a ride home?” Harry added from the back seat.          

"She didn’t have a last block class so she wasn’t at school. I'll see you tomorrow, lads. Only three days to go, woo!" he shouted excitedly into the open passenger window as he rushed into his house. Louis sent him off with a small wave which went unnoticed because his attention turned to Amy who caught up with him to walk through the gate and up the steps.

“He does know we have chemistry with her during last block, right?” Harry asked, still watching them walk through the door.

Louis was doing the same when he replied, “I don’t know what Niall knows.”

Instead of getting out the car and going around to the front, Harry took it upon himself to attempt to crawl over the centre arm rest to get into the front seat. In doing so, his foot nudged the volume knob on the radio, blasting some alternative rock station Louis had playing quietly in the background.

“C’mon, man, I just installed that,” Louis exclaimed as he twisted the knob back down.

“No amount of upgrades is going to turn this beater into a Porsche,” Harry said as he clicked on his seatbelt.

“Well this beater gets you to and from school every day, so I wouldn’t start complaining if I were you.”

“Touché.”

When Harry unlocked the front door to his house, the first place Louis headed to was the fridge. He pulled out some deli meat, two cheese slices, and the bottle of mustard then closed the door with his elbow. Letting everything fall into a pile on the counter, he reached for the bread while turning to ask Harry if he wanted any. With the shake of his head, Harry took a seat at the kitchen table and started aimlessly flipping through one of the flyers his mum left there from when she made her shopping list the night before

“Can I ask your opinion on something?” Harry asked, noticing the great discount on grapes happening this week that he really couldn’t care less about.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Things aren’t going great with Gillian lately. She’s so clingy, but at the same time doesn’t seem to care about anything going on with me. Not to mention when we hang out all we really do is-”

“Uh-uh, stop right there,” Louis cut him off as he piled about a third of the bag of turkey onto the bread, “I don’t need to hear what you guys do behind closed doors.”

“I was going to say “talk about her,” but nice to see where your mind goes,” Harry smirked, switching to check the deals at a hardware store.

“Not to bring up the horrors of this memory, but don’t pretend that one time I was trying to find you at a house party a few months, and made the mistake of walking into one of the upstairs bedrooms, didn’t happen.”

“If you thought I was in a bedroom, why else would I be in there?”

“I don’t know! I assumed you were drunk off your arse and I was trying to be a good friend,” Louis defended as he topped his sandwich and took the biggest bite he could fit in his mouth. He was leaning one hip against the counter, not bothering with a plate to catch his crumbs that were falling onto the floor. Harry made a mental note to sweep before his mom got home.

“Anyway, that’s not what I needed your opinion about. I think I’m going to break up with her.”

Louis stopped chewing, letting a closed-mouth grin spread across his face. Of course he would be thrilled. He absolutely despised Gillian. He only _tolerated_ Harry’s relationship with her. If that.

In all honestly, Harry should’ve known better than to ask Louis about this. He would obviously be the most biased out of his friends. Maybe Liam or Zayn would’ve had a better input since they had the most relationship experience of any of them. Even Niall would’ve been more help, despite his list of partners having more names than anyone else he knew of. Not one of them was a real relationship.

If he asked his mum or his sister, Gemma, they could’ve given great advice. They obviously knew more about women than any of the guys he hung out with. At least they could tell him how to make sure he didn’t hurt her feelings.

But no, he was coming to Louis for help. No reason made sense except that Louis was his best friend and despite all those other people who would’ve probably said something insightful and showed him both sides of the decision, Louis would tell him the truth. And maybe with his bias, tell him exactly what he wanted to hear.

“So are you asking me if I think you should break up with Gillian?” Harry nodded and Louis raised an eyebrow. He took a step forward and pulled out the chair diagonal from Harry, sitting down slowly, “You know I don’t like her.”

“I know.”

“And she treats you like absolute shit.”

“Well...”

“But if you think you can work it out, then you should. I may hate her, but you seem to really like her, so I can’t make that choice for you. If you can’t fix whatever is wrong, you won’t hear me complaining, but I do think you should try.”

Harry creased his eyebrows together. That wasn’t quite the answer he was expecting to hear come from Louis. He was hoping he’d say that he’d be better off without her and he should just move on. Maybe move on with _him_. But for some reason, he was actually supporting the relationship.

“You do know that she slept with another guy while we were together, right?”

“Yeah, and you were an idiot for staying with her then. Honestly you’d be an idiot to stay with her now, I just didn’t want to sound like a complete dick,” he tossed the last corner of his crust into the bin from where he was sitting then crossed his arms in front of him.

Now _that_ was what Harry needed to hear.

As the evening progressed and Harry figured his decision was made, they sat together at the kitchen table until Louis had to leave, talking about their performance at the upcoming festival and making plans to study for their chemistry exam later that week. When Harry's mum finally did come home, she entered the house with a letter in her hand and a smile spreading from ear to ear.

“Guess what came in the mail!” were the first words she uttered excitedly. Harry’s face lit up at the realization when she handed him the sealed envelope.

“What is it?” Louis asked, watching Harry tear open the letter. He didn’t bother stopping for a second to reply before reading its contents.

“I got in!” He cheered and jumped to his feet, right into his mum’s arms. “It’s from King’s. I got accepted!”

“I’m so proud of you!” Anne gushed, holding her hands together under her chin.

“Me too. Congrats, man!” Louis stood up to be the next one to hug him.

“Have you heard back from anywhere you’ve applied?” Harry asked as they released each other from the embrace. Louis adjusted the collar of his shirt and diverted his eyes to the left.

“Not yet, but I still have time. The year’s not over yet.”

“Yeah, of course. I’m sure you’ll hear back.”

The truth was, Louis only applied to one university, which also happened to be King’s. He had no clue what he actually wanted to do, but at least attending uni seemed like the right thing for now. His grades weren’t spectacular by any means, but he was sure they were good enough to get in (as long as you didn’t count chemistry, which he wasn’t.) If Harry got his letter, that meant he should be hearing back any day now. After all, they did apply at the same time.

When she was finished praising her son for his success, Anne asked Louis if he would like to stay for dinner. He had to decline because of work, but she still sent him off with some homemade cookies she wrapped up for him, insisting that he needed something for when he got hungry later on. As he left, Louis pecked her on the cheek as a thank you and waved goodbye to Harry.

"So," Anne started once her and Harry were alone, "I ran into Gillian’s mum at the shop after work today. She told me how glad she was that her daughter was with a boy like you."

"Did she?” Harry asked passively as he began chopping peppers at the counter to help with dinner. He could feel a few crumbs under his feet where he stood. He never did get around to sweeping the floor.

"You don’t talk about her much. Is everything alright with you two?" She knitted her eyebrows together.

Harry didn’t think too hard before replying, “I just don’t know if we’re really meant for each other. I like her, but I don’t think we want the same things.”

“Harry,” she brought forward her full attention by turning away from the stove, “Is she pressuring you into sex? You know if you’re not ready-”

“No! God, mum, that’s not- it’s not that. Everything is just really confusing right now.”

"Well, hon, you’re a teenager. Everything’s going to be confusing for a while. If you aren’t happy with Gillian, then you shouldn’t stay with her. I want you to know that I'll support you whatever you decide to do," Anne smiled warmly and planted a kiss above his ear as she walked by.

"Thanks, mum. I know,” Harry let out a short laugh as he stared down at the cutting board, still feeling slightly embarrassed over the question about sex. That ship sailed a while ago and it was not a conversation he was about to have right now. With that said, there would never be a time in his life that Harry would feel ungrateful for how wonderful and supportive his mum was.

"Good," she said, wiping her hands on the tea towel that hung over the oven, "Now start setting the table for dinner. I’m going to hang up this acceptance letter on the fridge."

 

 

The night before the trip Louis chose to stay at Harry's house. He figured that was easier since they had to be at the school by six the next morning and Louis didn't want to leave any earlier than he already had toin order to pick up Harry. That, and he’d take any excuse to get out of the chaos that is trying to get ready for school in the morning with four sisters.

Before leaving, with his packed bag at his side, Louis gave a last glance in the mirror on his bedroom wall. He left his hair down without product, all feathery and swooped to one side. Rarely would he ever actually do anything with his hair, but it still somehow managed to keep itself together. A red jumper hung off his small frame, the neckline wide enough to reveal his shoulders and defined collarbones. The sleeves were too long and bunched up around his hands.

Louis wasn’t exactly self-conscious about the way he looked. Generally, he was satisfied with his appearance. He just made sure to put effort in the way he came across to others at a first glance. His image was something he cared about more than he was willing to admit, or even realized.

With a somewhat satisfied sigh, he turned the light off and made his way down the stairs to give a goodbye hug and kiss to his mum and sisters before heading out the door.

A few hours later, Harry was going through his clothes in his bedroom, trying to pick what to pack for the weekend. Louis was laying on the bed next to the open suitcase and staring at the phone in his hands. He had his glasses on, which was a rare sight for anyone except Harry. All day Louis would have his contacts in and take them out only when he was about to go to sleep, claiming he hated how he looked in them. At Harry’s house, he sometimes took them out earlier so he wouldn’t have to deal with the task later. Harry always thought the glasses suited him quite well.

"I can't find my purple jumper," Harry said as he flicked through the hangers in his closet.

"I brought it. It's in my suitcase," Louis said casually.

"Did you take it out of my closet? When?"

"Last week. It's comfortable," he shrugged, not taking his eyes off of the screen. Of course the sweater was comfortable, it was Harry's favourite.

Harry folded up the three shirts he picked out along with another sweater, a few pairs of trousers, and his black concert shirt. Looking at the clock on his bedside table, he noticed it was already midnight.

"Ugh, we have to be up in less than five hours," Harry groaned as he tossed his zipped-up bag to the floor and flopped down next to Louis. Through twelve years of friendship, they got used to sharing the same bed long ago. By now, they didn’t even consider any other options.

"How long is the first drive?" Louis asked, voiced muffled by a pillow.

"I think like four hours," Harry guessed.

"Perfect. Four more hours to sleep."

When his eyes finally started to fall closed, Louis gave in and turned off the display on his phone to let it rest on the bedside table.

"Lou?" Harry mumbled as he settled onto his side, bunching a pillow up underneath his head.

"Hmm?" Louis hummed. He was already about to doze off.

“If you don’t wake up to that alarm, I will drag you out of bed in the morning. Don’t think I won’t.”

Louis groaned and turned his back to Harry, pulling the blanket up to his neck. “Noted.”

 

The next morning they were woken up by Billie Jean by Michael Jackson blasting through the tiny speaker of Harry's old clock radio. Great, it was already five in the morning and Louis felt like he’d been running a marathon all night. Not that he didn't sleep at all, he just needed about seven more hours to feel refreshed. And a whole lot of caffeine.

Swinging an arm around, Louis felt a rush of satisfaction once he hit the snooze button, silencing the alarm. At least, he thought he was hitting the snooze button.

At 5:40 a knock sounded at the door, making them both jolt awake.

"Boys, are you up? I thought you had to be at the school at six," Anne's voice sounded through the walls. Louis blinked the sleep out of his eyes to look at the clock then whipped the blankets off him.

"Fuck,” he mumbled as he searched the floor for his clothes. Considering Louis always thought of himself as the messy one, he was surprised at the current state of Harry's room, making it hard to differentiate which clothes were his.

"Yeah, thanks mum!" Harry yelled back, mimicking that of Louis' actions. His hair was still a tangled mess from sleep and he tried to brush it out with his hands as he searched for his sweats.

"Alright, well I'm off to work. Have a good trip. Love you!"

"Love you too," Harry was too busy scrambling around to really pay attention to what he was saying.

"How come the alarm didn’t go off? Did you hit snooze? We barely had enough time to get ready as it was! There's no way either of us can shower now," Harry complained.

“I didn’t see you waking up the first time it went off,” Louis replied as he pulled a pair of sweats over his boxers. His own hair was standing up in all directions and his eyes were still puffy from sleep.

“Because you turned the alarm off!” Harry stressed, shirt halfway pulled over his head.

“Arguing about it isn’t going to get us out of the house any faster,” Louis decided before grabbing his wallet and car keys off the bedside table.

As they rushed out the front door, Harry grabbed two apples out of the fruit bowl while still trying to balance his suitcase, phone, and jacket in the other hand. He tossed one to Louis after putting his bag in the trunk next to Louis’. When they pulled out of the driveway, the clock on the dash read 5:52am.

An eerie silence filled the car as Louis drove, trying to speed, but not so excessively that they’d get pulled over. Neither wanted to speak as they were both a mixture of tired, grumpy, and stressed. Harry watched the minutes tick away on the clock.

5:55… 5:56… 5:57…

Of course they managed to hit almost every red light they came across. The sky was still dark, the sun just beginning to rise. He just didn’t understand why the hell they had to leave this bloody early.

When they reached the school parking lot it was 6:07 and the school looked deserted. There were only four other cars in the parking lot, once which Louis recognized as Miss Hammond’s.

Popping the trunk of the car, they grabbed their suitcases and practically sprinted to the building, hoping the intentions weren’t to leave at exactly 6am. When they were in veiw of the front of the school, Harry stopped dead in his tracks.

“Louis, wait,” he called ahead of him. Louis spun around at attention. “Look, there’s no bus.” Harry gestured around him to the empty bus lane.

“Fucking hell!” Louis exclaimed, letting his bag fall to the ground and falling back onto it. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands as Harry walked forward a few steps to check if he could see any sign of life through the windows in the school. Louis took the break in rushing as an opportunity to take off the jumper he was wearing and stuff it in his bag. It was that same one Harry asked about the day before. He didn’t mention anything about Louis wearing it today, but he definitely noticed.

"Don't act like this isn't your fault for tuning off the alarm," Harry said, voice strained from stress. Worst case scenario, they really could just drive to the first town and meet up with the band. Louis wouldn't say that out loud of course, at risk of Harry throwing a fit.

"I know that, thanks. You're the one that has an old piece of shit clock radio. We should've just used a phone alarm," Louis countered. Harry couldn't be bothered to care about the comment as he felt a buzzing in his pocket from his phone.

_Zayn: where are you? Everyone’s waiting in the band room. Louis isn’t here yet either. He won’t answer his phone._

“Wait, Louis! I just got this text from Zayn. They’re still here,” Harry almost shouted in excitement. He grabbed his bag and started speed-walking without even waiting for Louis to respond. The sound of his footsteps behind him were answer enough.

When they walked in the band room doors, or rather, ran, everyone was set up with their instruments and staring at them. At the front of the room was a pile of bags where they figured to leave theirs as well, before quietly following suit by setting up. Well, Harry was quiet.

“How nice of you to join us,” Gillian sneered.

Louis naturally ignored her. “What’s going on?” he asked instead to no one in particular.

“I figured telling everyone we were leaving at six would encourage more of you to show up for an extra rehearsal,” Miss Hammond summarized, “Bus leaves at seven.”

Harry and Louis met eyes like each other was the camera in _The Office._

Being in the percussion section, he had to help load the drum kit and timpani onto the truck. This meant, when it was finally time to get on the bus, Louis was one of the last to get on. The bus was only half full when he stepped on since it was a full sized coach bus and there were only about twenty students in the class. With no sign of Harry, he took the seat behind Liam and Zayn and across from Chris.

"Hey," Chris greeted as Louis sat down. He and Chris weren't exactly friends, except for the fact that they were forced to be lab partners. There was some sort of superiority about Chris that Louis found annoying, but grew to bear.

Louis returned the greeting, but was too busy searching for Harry out the window to continue the conversation any further. Everyone else was already on the bus, but there was still no sign of him.

When his curly head finally poked up as he climbed the steps onto the bus, a feeling of relief flushed over Louis. That was until Harry walked right past him and took a seat next to Mason at the back of the bus, not even sparing him a glance. Louis watched him in confusion. What did he do that was so wrong that Harry wouldn't even so much as look at him, never mind sitting together?

Louis reached for his phone in his bag to type out a text when he felt someone plop down on the seat next to him.

"Lads," Niall said, referring to him as well as Zayn and Liam in front of them.

"Hey, man," Louis said, abandoning the search for his phone. The text would have to wait.

"This trip is going to be sick," Niall continued loudly, forcing Zayn and Liam to turn around and join the conversation. "I even brought a little treat for later," he wiggled his eyebrows.

"Is this treat something we can smoke or are we talking more like baked goods," Zayn questioned.

"God, Niall, did you bring those pot brownies?" Liam asked, voice far too loud for this kind of conversation.

"Hey, keep it down! No, I didn't bring pot brownies," Niall said in a hushed voice.

"Good. Not that I'm not up for a good time, I'd just rather not get expelled on this trip. Or kicked off the football team," Liam told the group.

"However, I did bring pot cookies," Niall smirked.

"Niall!" Liam shouted, causing the others to snicker in response.

You wouldn’t catch anyone calling Niall any type of chef, but the one thing he did know how to make was a delectable pot cookie. He even had an array of flavours he would bake, throwing extras into a Ziploc bag and hiding them in the bottom of his freezer to bring to parties or just whenever he needed them. He did consider selling them for profit, but he thought of the cookies more as his own version of charity work.

"You were always my favourite, you know that?" Louis admired, patting Niall on the back.

"I second that," Zayn spoke up, "Don't worry, Li, we'll eat them in our room. No one will ever know."

Liam sighed, sounding defeated. Louis wasn't sure if it was because of the cookies or because he felt he might be excluded.

Remembering he still had a text to send, Louis stuck his hand in his bag, feeling around for his cell phone. There was his wallet, a bottle of pop, a pair of headphones, his drumsticks, but no phone. He started patting down his pockets before the realization hit him. Before he fell asleep, he put his phone on Harry’s bedside table. In the morning panic, he never gabbed it to take with him

So there it would spend the weekend, he supposed. Still plugged into the wall with 100% battery charge while Louis was stuck on this bus with headphones and nothing to plug them into. So much for a distraction from his thoughts.


	2. Da Capo

Two hours later, Louis was awoken by the sudden slamming of his head against the window as the bus sped over a rather large pothole. It took a moment for the haziness of sleep to fade away before he could process the reason for the throbbing forming on the right side of his head.

"Ahh!" He groaned, placing his hand over the source and leaning his head against the back of his seat.

"Are you okay?"

Louis turned to see that he obtained a new seat partner in the form of Harry.

"What are you doing here?" Louis asked, looking back up to the roof of the bus.

"I asked Niall to switch with me," he motioned towards the back of the bus where Niall was sitting next to Mason, whose face was buried in a book, and talking to someone across the aisle. "I didn't realize you fell asleep already."

"It was a tiring morning."

"Tell me about it."

They sat in the quiet for a moment, watching the cars pass and taking in the peaceful countryside. Louis thought it was odd that he never before realized how much he enjoyed the simplicity in it. He’d like to live in the countryside someday, he decided. Maybe not necessarily here, but somewhere and with someone. But who’s to say who that someone would be at this point.

"Sorry I was so grumpy this morning. I was just really worried we'd miss the bus and not make the trip," Harry said, a bit quieter.

"S'alright,” Louis shrugged. “Sorry I hit snooze."

The corner of Harry's lip turned up, "You mean thought you hit snooze."

"Isn't it the thought that counts?"

"Not sure if that applies to this situation, but sure,” Harry patted his knee in reassurance. Louis smiled fondly in return.

 

The first stop they made on the trip was to a large park filled with blooming trees and lush gardens, something no one remembered being listed on the itinerary. The driver pulled into an empty parking lot while Ms. Hammond instructed everyone to leave their belongings on the bus and meet in the middle of the seating area filled with picnic tables and benches. As they walked in a rather spread out group, Ms. Hammond followed with a stack of papers, multiple boxes of markers and pencil crayons, and the portable speaker she often used for music during set-up and clean-up in class.

The spot Ms. Hammond chose was filled with six tables, just enough for everyone to sit down. Louis sat with Liam and Zayn while Niall was off with Harry at Gillian's table. Gillian insisted they did sit together since she and Harry hadn’t spent any time together since the trip started. Mind you, that had been about two hours. Louis might have to have a talk with Niall later, as well, about associating with the enemy.

Distributing the paper and markers, with the help of Gillian of course, Miss Hammond took a moment to explain the activity.

"So for our first exercise I want you guys to experience synesthesia. Basically, it's a neurological phenomenon that allows some people to hear colours or taste shapes or, in this case, see music.”

When Gillian got to their table she dropped the boxes of markers and pens in the middle with a thud, not even bothering to spare them a glance.

“There are many artists who have been diagnosed with this condition such as Mary J. Blige, Stevie Wonder, Eddie Van Halen, and even Kanye West. When hearing music, they tend to see specific colours in their mind that transcend the music. While, as far I know, none of you actually have synesthesia, we're going to try to tap into that part of our brains. I'm going to play songs from all genres, classical to modern Top 40, and I want you guys to simply draw what you see."

"So why are we at a park?" Chris spoke up from where he was sat across from Louis who rolled his eyes at the unnecessary question.

"Because it's a nice day and we didn't really have another option," Miss Hammond replied firmly, making a few people snicker at the answer.

Sounding simple enough, Miss Hammond started with the song _Happy_ by Pharrell Williams. Another person, she mentioned, who actually has synesthesia. At first, all Louis could picture was the music video he remembered seeing on TV a few times. It was a lot of buildings and people dancing through the street. Then he started to really listen to the music and the feeling it gave him. Soon, it was turning into blue swirls and wavy yellow lines and he just started drawing.

Peeking around the table, Chris and Liam's drawings seemed quite abstract as well with no defying pattern or symmetry. Zayn, however, was sketching a whole scene in pencil crayon that looked straight out of a Loony Tunes episode.

"I'm not high enough for this," Niall said, loud enough for everyone to hear. A few giggles were heard here and there, Miss Hammond included, but Amy barked out a laugh. Louis' head snapped up and he narrowed his eyes towards their table. She was sitting right next to Niall, and awfully close at that. They were talking quietly together and Chris’ squirming made it easy to tell that we was quite aware of the situation.

"What's going on over there?" Louis spoke quietly so just his table could hear and nodded towards them.

"Not sure, but apparently they went on a double date with Harry and Gillian the other day, after, uh, you know…” Liam trailed off.

“They went on a date? Did Harry mention anything about it to you guys?” Chris looked around the table.

Before Monday, Chris had been the one dating Amy on and off for nearly a year. Amy had claimed they were off for the last month, but she would still be seen around Chris nearly every day. Or, at least, when she wasn’t with Casey or Gillian. They relationship got so messy that no one really bothered to keep up anymore. That was, until now.

 “I didn’t hear anything,” Liam put his hands up in defense, “but he tells Louis everything.”

“He didn’t say anything to me. Maybe Niall asked him not to mention it,” Louis shrugged.

“They don’t have to hide. I don’t care if he wants to date Amy. We’re done. It’s fine.” Chris muttered refusing eye contact.

"How do you know they were hiding from you?" Liam raised an eyebrow. The new song started and they swapped their papers for new ones. Louis' drawing wasn't quite complete, but that was the least of his concerns at the moment.

"Well for one, she's his ex. Isn't there some rule about dating your friend's exes?" Louis looked around at all of them, waiting for someone to agree. Zayn was too focused on finishing his drawing to care about the conversation.

"Look, I don’t care if they’re dating. Obviously I've moved on," Chris stressed as he shaded in a section with green pencil crayon.

"Yeah, real obvious,” Zayn muttered and then snapped his head up with wide eyes, not meaning to let the statement slip out.

“Hey mate, why don’t you worry about your own relationship problems and keep your nose out of mine.” Louis resisted the urge to say, “What relationship?”

Liam pulled his eyebrows together and glanced at Zayn, who was back at work on his drawing, “We don’t have problems, do we?” he questioned.

“Uh, well, no, I mean-” Zayn stuttered when the group was interrupted by Miss Hammond’s overlooking gaze and slow steps around the table.

“Music is easier to listen to when you don’t talk over it,” she stated before making her way to the next table.

Silence once again fell over the four of them, but an odd tension hung there as well. Chris slid over a hair away from Zayn, who was refusing to meet Liam’s eyes across the table.

With a sigh, Louis looked at the blank piece of paper in front of him. He saw blues and greens and waves and swirls while a Bach piece swept the air. It was relief he was feeling, but he wasn’t so sure it came from the music. More likely, it was because he didn’t have to deal with any of this relationship drama for himself.

 

The first performance of the trip was a qualifying round for the year-end festival. Every year they performed in it they entered with confidence in the effort they put in to rehearse, and for the last four years, placed within the top three. Only ten out of the twenty-five ensembles would make it. This year would be no different and they were sure of it.

Scheduled to perform right after lunch, the group had more than an hour to set up on the stage and do a quick practice run before the judges, and the few audience members that showed up for the qualifying round, returned.

For every performance, the most difficult part about setting up and taking down was dealing with the percussion section at each venue. Some competitions provided their own, but when it came to the finals, each band had to provide their own instruments. At least Louis wasn't alone in the process as he had another percussionist, Brandon, to help him out.

Brandon was two years younger than Louis and was often like Louis' protégé. Louis considered himself to be quite modest, but he also was aware that Brandon idolized him. He would do anything Louis would ask and always laugh the loudest at his jokes. It was a nice change to have him around, opposed to being the youngest in the section and always getting the worst parts for the last few years. So maybe Louis took advantage of it a bit, but it was tradition. Next year, Brandon would be oldest in the section and get to do the same to the newcomers that year.

During setup today, Louis was feeling mischievous and a little bit annoyed. That meant this was one of those times he would have to take advantage of Brandon's willingness to obey his every command.

"Brandon, I need a favour," Louis asked as Brandon was tightening the screws on the drum kit.

"Sure, anything," Brandon said, stopping everything he was doing to comply.

"Two things: first, do you have any gum?"

"Um, yeah, but we aren't supposed to chew gum while-"

"It's fine, don't worry about it. I just need a piece." Louis interrupted, "Also, I need you to distract Gillian."

"Alright,” he took a green package out of his pocket and slid out one of the paper wrapped pieces, handing it to Louis, "What do you want me to say to Gillian?"

"Just tell her Hammond needs to talk to her in the dressing room or something. She'll fall for that easily," Louis said before he stuck the piece of gum in his mouth and tossed the wrapper onto the lip of his music stand.

"You're not going to tell me what you're planning on doing, are you?" Brandon asked as he began walking away.

"Not a chance."

Once Gillian had finally left the stage, eager to see what Miss Hammond needed, Brandon sent Louis a thumbs up from the doorway. Sneaking around to the trombone section, Louis found her chair and stand, her trombone lying neatly on the floor beside them. He picked it up carefully and yanked off the mouth piece. Taking the gum he was just chewing, he stuffed it inside and pushed the mouthpiece back on right where it was.

"She's going to kill you. Like, I'm actually worried for your safety," a voice sounded from behind him. Harry was standing there with his arms crossed, looking only slightly amused.

"She'll never know it was me as long as you keep your mouth shut. Unless you prefer to stand up to me for you girlfriend. That would be an odd change of pace," Louis observed.

"At this point, I think she prefers any chance she can get for revenge against you,” Harry sighed instead.

"Don’t you have something to hit with a stick?" Gillian huffed as she returned to her seat. Harry’s expression changed to surprise before he tried to force a smile at the sight of his girlfriend.

"Couldn't find Miss Hammond? I heard she was looking for you," Louis said.

"She said she didn't need anything. Why do you care, anyway?" She snapped.

"You know what? I really don't. Good luck out there!" Louis left her with a spiteful grin as he and Harry returned to their respective sections. That gum was going to be one hell of a mess to clean up.

 

As he stood over the sink in the boy’s bathroom with a dismantled trombone on the counter in front of him, Louis realized that the gum prank may not have been his best idea so far. They didn’t even make it through tuning before Gillian knew there was a problem and lost it on Louis. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her so livid before, and Hammond was almost equally as mad. Turns out, competitions aren’t the best time for pranks that could be considered sabotage. Hammond even warned that he was lucky she wasn’t sending him home. On the other hand, Gillian’s reaction was so good it was worth it. Besides, it wasn’t like this was the first time he might have pulled a tiny prank on her.

Sure she was mad when he put the tiny spider he found on the ground down the back of her shirt in the middle of rehearsal last year. And when he swapped all her music with Brandon’s when he wasn’t there one day- which didn’t even matter because it turned out she had most of her parts memorized anyway. Finally, he found what would truly break her: messing with her instrument. She treated that trombone like her own child. If there weren’t other people in the room, she probably would’ve kicked his ass right there. Not that he didn’t deserve it.

Louis hadn’t hardly held a wind instrument since his attempt at flute when he was twelve and just starting band. He wasn’t exactly terrible at it, but he was the only boy in the section with six girls. Being the prepubescent, insecure, pre-teen he was, he felt like he might get made fun of for playing a “girl’s instrument”. Of course he knew how ridiculous that assumption was now, but at the time asking to switch to percussion seemed like the best option. Not that he regretted switching- he loved being a percussionist- but there was always a part of him that wished he didn’t let his silly fear of what other people might think of him get in the way.

Along with a scolding, Miss Hammond gave him a weird wand with some white bristles to clean the gum out. The gooey substance got stuck in the spit valve when she played her tuning note and somehow stretched all along it. It took a good ten minutes of scrubbing until Louis was sure he got every spot of gum out of it. Not that it really mattered how good of a job he did, anyway. Gillian would surely clean until it was spotless the moment they got back.

When he eventually emerged from the bathroom, trombone looking good as new, Gillian was waiting right by the door. Hopefully she wasn’t gearing up for a screaming match because Louis really wasn’t in the mood and they only had a few minutes before they had to perform.

“Did you get all the gum out?” she asked, a lot more civil than expected.

“Yes…” Louis hesitated before handing over the instrument.

“Thanks,” she simply said, taking it from his hand.

“I put gum in your trombone. Why are you thanking me?”

“Thinking of all the ways I’m going to get you back just put me in a really good mood,” she grinned with narrow eyes. Of course she wasn’t being nice, she was just so angry she might have gone a little crazy.

“Well, I’ll be looking forward to your attempt at revenge,” Louis began to walk past her and back towards the stage, “Don’t think I forgot about the time you tried to prank call me and forgot to block your number.”

“I’m sure I can think of something. Maybe even Harry could help me out,” she smirked.

Louis tried to hide his laughter, but all he could think of was the countless pranks that Harry had been in on or even helped with before he and Gillian got together. Once they were dating, he claimed it was “too cruel” or something to torment his own girlfriend. Louis didn’t see any problem with it, but he wouldn’t push. He also knew Harry well enough that he would never dare try pull one on Louis.

“I guess we’ll see, then,” Louis nodded, walking past her and ensuring to nudge her shoulder with his own as he did so. He didn’t turn around, but he could feel her glare as he walked away.

 

As the hours of late afternoon dragged on and the sun slowly lowered leaving an orange hue in the sky, drowsiness began to take over the bus's passengers. At the front of the bus, a few of the younger band kids, Brandon’s friends, as Louis knew them, took over the speakers to play the soundtrack from _Footloose_. After the news of their first place victory, the sing along was in full force right through the title track, and _Let's Hear it for the Boy_. Slowly, it died down after _Fake I.D._ and was turned to a background hum.

Opting for the very back of the bus this time, Louis was turned around in his seat he claimed for himself, facing Harry and Zayn while he tapped lightly on the backrest along to the beat with his drumsticks. Liam, Niall, Chris, and Mason were scattered in the nearby seats across the aisle, Chris sprawled out and asleep on his.

Mason had his laptop open on his lap, editing some footage he'd been shooting for a compilation video of the trip. The screen was slightly turned away as he insisted no one saw it until it was completely finished, much to Niall's dismay as he kept trying to sneak peeks from behind him.

Mason was known as being quite the film geek, and he loved that about himself. When he suggested the idea for the video to Miss Hammond, she was thrilled and approved it right away. For the others on the trip, it would just be a matter of getting used to the occasional camera in their face, which Mason tried to pull out only when necessary.

Open on his lap, Zayn was flipping through a Thor comic he brought with him, examining the art as well as the storyline as he read.

"If you could be any Avenger, who would you choose?" Louis questioned as he brought his sticks together and tucked them under his knees that were pulled to his chest.

It took a second for Zayn to look up, not realizing he was the one being asked. "Who, me?"

"Yeah, I'm curious."

He placed the guitar pick he was using as a book mark into the corner of the book before closing it, humming as he tried to make up his mind.

"Probably Iron Man. I think it would just be sick to be in that suit, plus having the capability to modify it however you need."

"The whole rich thing is probably nice too," Louis added.

"I always thought Hawkeye was under-appreciated," Niall piped up from his window seat, "He always seemed like a clever guy."

"You seem more like Falcon to me," Liam joined in as well, pulling his attention from his phone.

"Is that so? Is it because of my charm and wit? The loyalty and clever jokes?"

"Don't flatter yourself, bird boy," Louis quipped before bringing his attention to the boy in front of him, lost in the music blaring from his headphones and the passing cars out the window.

"What about you, Haz?"

Harry met his eyes with raised eyebrows before pulling one earphone out. "Sorry?"

"Which Avenger would you be?"

"Have you guys been taking _Buzzfeed_ quizzes while I was zoned out?"

"Yeah, and next we're going to find out what ice cream flavour you are based on your birth month," Louis deadpanned, "C'mon, just answer the question."

"I like Captain America," Harry shrugged, pressing pause on his music. He was getting sucked into this conversation whether he liked it or not, he supposed.

"I guess that makes you Bucky, then," Zayn nodded at Louis and smirked.

"Why do you say that?" Louis cocked an eyebrow.

"Best friends since childhood," Liam began reciting from the movie, "Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers were inseparable on both the school-"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I think I'm more of a Cap though and Harry is Bucky," Louis gestured to himself then towards Harry.

"Or maybe Peggy Carter," Niall said, laughing at his own joke before anyone else even caught on.

Of course Niall, who for years made his joking speculation of more than friendship between the two of them clear, would take any chance he could to reinforce that idea. Whether or not Niall actually believed what he claimed, no one could ever tell. Louis and Harry glanced at each other for a moment, Louis with a laugh and offhanded roll of the eyes. Bringing a hand up to scratch his nose, Harry tried to distract from the fact that his face was turning beet red.

"Alright, laugh it up," Louis said, "Peggy is pretty badass though. Not exactly an Avenger, but I'd be her," he shrugged, crossing his legs and pressing his back against the seat ahead of him.

"Honestly, I'm offended none of you brought up Black Widow," Mason pointed out without looking away from his computer screen, "Natasha is by far the most badass Avenger."

“I think he’s got us, there,” Zayn affirmed. The others nodded their heads and muttered agreements to the statement.

Glancing periodically in front of him and tuning out the rest of the conversation, Harry wondered if it was even possible for him to deny his feelings for the boy with crinkles by his eyes and a crooked smile.

 

As what had to be done as soon as the four boys entered their first hotel room of the trip, it came time to call dibs on beds. Niall was first to walk in, throwing his suitcase down on the mattress closest the window. The others stood near the TV, bags still in hand, looking between each other to see who would give in to share with him.

“Well, I’ve done my part. Let’s see if there’s anything on pay per view,” Niall fell back against the pillows, folding an arm behind his head and grabbing the remote off of the bedside table.

“Pay per view? What decade are you in?” Louis asked as he moved towards the other bed to put his own bags down.

“Hold on, who said you don’t have to share with Niall?” Harry stopped him, pulling the bags off of the bed and dropping them on the floor. Louis sent him a scowl, firmly resting his hands on his hips.

“Hey, what’s wrong with sharing with me?” Niall whined from across the room.

“Niall, we love you, but until you learn to control your arse, no one wants to share with you,” Louis informed him.

Niall scoffed, but couldn’t exactly argue with the point. Some might consider the occasional bodily function disgusting, but he thought of them as something to be proud of.

“Okay, I know how we can decide on this,” Zayn stepped in front of the TV to block Niall’s view, “Chicken Dares. Each person does a dare until they chicken out, then the last person who hasn’t chickened out, or failed, gets to pick who they share with. Yeah?”

“You want to make this decision based on a game we came up with when we were in primary school?” Louis raised an eyebrow.

“Got any better ideas?”

“Flip a coin, Rock Paper Scissors, draw straws…” Harry began listing, counting each on a finger.

“What, you guys afraid you’re going to lose?” Niall asked, still staring at the TV in front of him.

Louis narrowed his eyes and that all it took to convince him, “Alright, you’re on.”

When the order was finally decided on after a quick flip of a coin- which they refused to acknowledge was on of Harry’s alternative suggestions- Niall was first up to complete his dare. In order for Zayn to do his, they needed ice from the machine down the hall. This, of course, meant that Niall would have to go fill the ice bucket in nothing but his underwear.

The four stood in the doorway of the hotel room, Niall checking to see if anyone was around before he began his short journey.

“Don’t worry, man, no matter how few people suffer the misfortune of seeing this first hand, the security cameras will still catch everything,” Louis announced as he took the first few steps.

Ignoring the banter from down the hall, Niall took quick steps across the floor on the tips of his toes. The grime of the old carpet felt as though it was smearing across his foot as he stepped down. Around the corner, the machine was in a small room with tiled flooring. He stuck the bucket in the opening and pressed the button for the ice to pour into it. As the bucket filled, he jumped back and forth between feet, both anxious to get back in the room and because of how cold the tile was on his bare skin. This whole situation would probably be a lot better if he actually wore boxers today and not “tighty-whiteys”.

Once he could finally escape with the bucket, he was quick to notice an older woman, possibly in her 60s, walking down the other side of the hallway towards him. His face turned bright red as he subtly lowered the bucket to cover his unmentionables. When they passed, she scowled at him before focusing her attention straight ahead. Niall returned the look with an apologetic, tight lipped smile.

In the last few steps, the door was finally in close view where Louis, Harry, and Zayn were falling over themselves laughing.

“I hate all of you,” Niall sneered while handing Zayn the ice bucket and pushing past them to get to his clothes.

“That poor woman!” Harry said, falling back onto one of the beds and holding his stomach.

“She’ll be scarred for the rest of her life,” Louis added.

“At least I’m still in the game!” Niall pulled his shirt over his head, “C’mon, now, I want to see Zayn pour this bucket down his pants.”

Louis tried to compose himself to affirm the rules, “And remember, you have to keep in there until your next dare.”

“Alright, alright,” Zayn shook the ice around a bit, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do. With a few short breaths and no countdown, he pulled open the waistband of his pants and let the cubes fall.

“Ahh! So much shrinkage!” he exclaimed as he dropped the bucket to the ground, letting the others erupt into laughter. Already he was unsure how long he could bare the ice resting directly against his crotch.

Next was Louis’ turn and his dare was a little more risky and required a tad of creativity. He sat in front of the hotel phone, rubbing his hands together to psych himself up. Harry and Niall stood on either side of him while Zayn suffered in the background. Picking up the phone slowly, he dialed the number nine followed by the room number and waited for the ring.

“Hello?” a female voice greeted on the other end.

“Yes, hi there, this is the front desk,” Louis replied, trying to make his voice as low as possible without it sounding fake, “Is this the room that requested cable porn? We just have a problem with your payment information.”

“Uh, no, it’s not,” Miss Hammond replied slowly, almost questioning.

“Are you sure? We have an order here for Kung Fu Power Foursome: A Ninja Turtle Parody.”

Harry’s eyebrows shot up and he slapped his hand over his mouth, trying to stop himself from barking out laughter. Niall snorted, but managed to turn away to collect himself.

Behind them, Zayn was jumping around, too focused on the melting ice in his pants.

“I can’t do it! I forfeit!” Zayn declared, running off the bathroom to rid himself of the cold and soaking wet bottoms. Louis pulled the phone away from his mouth to shush him, but it was too late.

“What was that? Louis, is that you?” the voice said through the phone again.

“Uh, it’s- No!” Louis panicked and slammed the receiver back on its base. “That was not my fault. Zayn ruined it!” he pointed at the bathroom angrily.

“Can someone bring me new pants?” Zayn called out over the sound of ice cubes hitting the bottom of the bathtub.

“Fine, we’ll give that to you solely for Kung Fu Power Foursome: A Ninja Turtle Parody,” Niall decided, “That was genius.”

“I try, but I might be paying for that when we see Miss H tomorrow,” Louis cringed at the thought of being confronted about it, “Let’s get on with the dares, shall we? Zayn, get out of there! Harry has some toilet water to drink!”

Harry looked down at the glass of water in his hands. Not only was he supposed to drink it, but he had to scoop it out of the toilet himself. He didn’t even want to think of the amount of people who used this room before them. Floating around the glass were even a few unidentifiable specs.

“I won’t do it,” Harry stated, looking between the glass and the other three sitting on the bed across.

“Yes you will,” commanded Louis.

“Just take a sip, you don’t have to drink it all,” Zayn offered sympathetically.

“Deciding on who I have to share a bed with isn’t worth this,” Harry stood up and walked back to the bathroom to dump the water down the drain, a chorus of disapproving boos following him.

“Weak, both of you!” Niall said, referring to Zayn as well.

With Harry and Zayn no longer in the running, the last dare had to be a tie breaker between Louis and Niall. In an agreement from the beginning, the two of them had to stand at different parts of the hotel and kiss the first guest that they spotted on the cheek. The dare was juvenile and probably quite inappropriate, but what part of this game so far wasn’t? Doing the dare with consent of course, is what brought the real challenge. Louis had the lobby to scope someone out with Zayn as witness while Niall and Harry wandered the pool and gym area.

They weren’t waiting long before one of the side doors to the rooms opened and Louis got ready to make his move. Trying his best not to seem creepy, he made his way closer to the doors, only for his stomach to drop when he spotted Gillian sauntering through in athletic clothes and with a towel wrapped around the back of her neck. She made uncomfortable eye contact with Louis as Amy followed her trail, but didn’t bother to say anything to them, even when Amy waved a greeting.

Louis watched the two of them walk towards the gym, not moving from where his feet were planted. With eyes squinted shut, he realized he’d have to accept defeat.

“You know you would’ve had to kiss her to win, right?” Zayn asked.

“I know.”

“And that Niall is going to kiss Amy and win.”

“Well,” Louis sighed, “let’s just hope he doesn’t pick me, then.”

Back in the hotel room, Niall stood in front of the other three boys, prepared to make his decision. He folded his hands together in front of him and looked at each of them individually. They were all in pyjamas now, since Niall claimed he needed more time to make his decision. It was 11 at night meaning everyone was tired and grumpy and really didn’t care who they had to share with at this point as long as they could go to sleep.

“You were all worthy competitors, but, ultimately, I won.”

“You won by convenience,” Louis spoke up.

“But a win, nonetheless. And now, it’s time for me to make my decision.”

“He’s about to reveal which one of us he’s secretly in love with so pay attention, boys,” Harry remarked, making Louis bow his head and Zayn turn away so they could laugh.

“You guys take the fun out of everything,” Niall whined. “Whatever, I pick Zayn. He’s the only who didn’t complain about sharing with me earlier.”

Zayn’s smile dropped, but Louis and Harry were more than happy to oblige to the decision.

“God bless,” Louis mumbled as he stepped past Niall and towards the other bed. “Looks like it’s you and me then, Haz. Nothing we haven’t done before, I suppose.”

“It would be much appreciated if you saved your bodily functions for your own privacy,” Zayn said, as he pulled the blankets down on his side.

“My bodily functions have a mind of their own and should be appreciated,” Niall replied defensively as he turned the lights out.

With undeniable exhaustion, Harry and Louis crawled into their own bed and fell asleep before their heads even hit the pillow, both facing towards the wall. On many occasions, including tonight, Louis would often curl into Harry’s back in his sleep. He couldn’t help it if that was the most comfortable position to sleep in. It just felt natural.

 

Harry was less than happy to be wide awake at sunrise the next morning. His nightmare about a zombie invasion through his neighborhood caused the jolt that woke him up just as he was being chased down the street, unable to actually run in his dream state. This was Louis' fault, he decided, for making them watch reruns of _The Walking Dead_ before bed.

It took a moment for Harry to register where he was while his eyes adjusted to the dim room, only lit by an orange haze hidden by the curtains. In his sleep, he didn't notice Louis' knee digging into his back or the arm he accidentally swung over Harry's torso. Louis was quite the cuddly sleeper, so it's not like he wasn't used to it at this point. Every time Louis ended up spending the night, Harry could expect to wake to his side of the bed being invaded by extra limbs.

Across the room, Niall's light snoring filled the silence, but the spot next to him was nothing but a bare fitted sheet and a bunched up duvet. Harry wondered if Zayn had snuck out in the night to go see Liam, but where exactly they would go at five in the morning, he had no idea.

When he ultimately gave up on trying to fall back asleep, Harry pushed the blankets off of him and decided to get ready for breakfast instead. The complimentary buffet should be starting within the next hour, anyway, and they didn’t have to be on the bus until nine. In Harry's absence, Louis turned over and curled back up on his own side, leaving behind a dent on Harry's pillow and a spot still warm from his body heat. A couple more hours would most likely pass before he and Niall woke up.

With only a shower on his mind, Harry tiptoed towards the bathroom, trying his best not to disturb the other two. Only, his shower plans might have had to be postponed once he noticed the light underneath the door. He couldn't hear any water running and it had to have been 20 minutes since Harry realized Zayn's disappearance. Hesitantly, he decided to knock on the door.

"Zayn?" he asked as softly as his groggy voice could manage. After a few seconds of quiet fumbling, the door clicked open and Zayn's head poked out.

"Sorry, did you need the bathroom?" Zayn whispered. His eyes were red from lack of sleep and dark circles surrounded them. "I couldn't sleep so I came in here to use the light for some sketching. I ate one of those cookies Niall brought so I had to get out some creativity."

He took mental note of the fact that Niall had some of his infamous pot cookies with him, but given the state of Zayn’s appearance and the tone of his voice, Harry asked, "Is everything all right?"

Zayn looked down, as if trying to decide what the answer really was. Or, at least, what he was going to tell Harry.

"Not really," he sighed.

"You need someone to talk to?"

With a slow nod, he let go of the handle so the door would open wider, allowing Harry to enter. Harry noticed Zayn's sketchbook was still in the empty bathtub where he must have been sitting as he closed the door behind them, as well as a folded up towel that he was probably using as a back pillow.

"Care to join me?" Zayn motioned towards the spot beside him as he returned to his seat, moving the book out of the way. Harry shrugged and climbed over the side of the tub, imitating Zayn in sitting with his knees up and his back against the wall. The tub wasn't spacious in the least and he’d be lying if he said sitting sideways in a bathtub was comfortable. His long legs hardly even allowed his body to bend in such a position.

"I think Liam is going to break up with me," Zayn confessed, watching his hands as he played with the coil on his sketchbook.

"What makes you say that?"

"He's been so distant from me lately and we've barely seen each other in the last few weeks. Even when we are together he spends most of his time ignoring me. It feels like all he cares about all of the sudden is the physical stuff and I don't want that to be what our relationship is based on," Zayn rested his head against the wall and stared at the ceiling, "This just isn't like him. We were friends for a long time before we started dating. I thought we knew everything about each other."

"Have you tried confronting him about any of this?"

"Try? Yes. Succeed? No. He's not great with talking about his emotions. The last serious conversation we had was when he said he was worried there would be a problem with us sharing a room on this trip."

Harry brought his eyebrows together in confusion, "Liam said not sharing rooms was your idea."

"He did?" Zayn looked directly at Harry, matching the confusion, "Well, I guess I did suggest picking other roommates, but only because he brought up the issue with sharing. I love him, but I just- I think he's ashamed to be with me."

"C'mon, Zayn, you know that's not true. You guys have been together almost a year. He talks about you literally all the time. It's always 'Zayn said this' or 'did you hear about what Zayn did' or my favourite, 'you should've seen what Zayn drew'. He loves you more than anything." Zayn raised his eyebrows thoughtfully as Harry spoke. "If anything, he's proud of you. As he should be. Remember the party he threw for you when you found out you got into art school? Or the fancy dinner he took you to for you birthday that no guy his age should be able to afford?"

"Yeah, I guess that party was pretty fun, wasn't it? And I don't know how he convinced Chris to get us that reservation at his dad’s restaurant.”

"He's got a way with words. Probably picked it up from Louis," Harry smiled, hoping to make Zayn do the same. He swore the corner of his mouth at least slightly lifted. "Speaking of Chris, what was he talking about in the park today?"

"I don't really know. He must've assumed something was wrong when Liam asked to be his roommate," shrugged Zayn carelessly.

"Don't worry about him too much. He likes creating problems that don’t exist. As for Liam, talk to him and say how you really feel. He'll understand, trust me. You just need to communicate."

"Thanks man," Zayn nudged him with his shoulder. The space they were sitting in was so small he didn’t really have another option.

Harry truly meant every word he said. He had nothing but faith in Liam and Zayn's relationship right from the start. They were meant for each other, always have been. And one day, he was sure he'd be watching them at the altar as they said their vows.

"Can I confide in you as well?" Harry questioned, breaking the silence that followed.

"Seems only fair."

Harry took a deep breath and spoke quieter this time, at risk of anyone else hearing through the walls, "I kissed Louis."

"What?! When?" Zayn turned his whole body so we was perpendicular to Harry, suddenly very invested in what he was about to hear.

"A few weeks ago. I was upset about Gillian, and he just broke up with some girl so we sat on my roof and got drunk and it just kinda happened."

"That explains the spooning I walked by to get here. Did you already break up with Gillian?"

"No, no, Lou and I aren't together. We haven't even talked about it since it happened. I _am_ probably going to break up with Gillian when we get back, though." Harry pushed the hair out of his face, feeling a mental strain just talking about it.

"Well, we all always knew you guys have been close but-"

Zayn was interrupted by a knocking at the door, causing them both to freeze. Harry pleaded in his mind both that it wasn't Louis and that whoever it was didn't hear any of what either of them had just said.

"Uh, come in," Zayn responded, completely disregarding that that usually isn't the response someone expects to hear after knocking on the door of a bathroom.

Niall opened the door anyway, a bit taken back by the scene in the bathtub he was now witnessing. He squinted his eyes when the bright light hit them, clearly having just woken up.

"Well, I didn't mean to interrupt bath time, but I gotta take a piss," he grumbled, already lifting the seat on the toilet.

"Jesus, man, wait for us to leave at least!" Harry exclaimed as he and Zayn stood up, collecting themselves and heading towards the door.

When they reached the main area, Louis was still sound asleep and Harry thanked God there was no way he could've heard anything. As he decided he should actually gather his things to take a shower, Zayn muttered from across the room, "We’ll finish that conversation later."

***

_One month earlier…_

Harry sat at the kitchen table with his back to the wall and one knee up on a chair. In one smooth motion, he tipped the beer bottle in the air to swallow the remaining contents. He never really liked the taste of beer, but the few loose bottles in the fridge was the only form of alcohol he could find in the house.

Across the room, there was a rustling at the door that he didn’t bother to acknowledge since he already knew what it was. The door opened slowly and Louis peeked through the opening wearing a red beanie, with one hand tucked in the pocket of his denim jacket and the other holding a bottle of whiskey.

“Want to talk about it?” he asked softly as he closed the door behind him and sat on the opposite chair, placing the whiskey between them.

“Not exactly,” Harry sighed and brought the bottle to his lips once again, forgetting that he had already finished it off.

“Is Anne home?”

“Nope.”

“Want to go to the roof and get drunk?” Louis offered instead.

“I’m already just about there.”

When they were eleven years old, Harry and Louis realized that the window outside of the upstairs spare bedroom led to a lower level of the roof. Upon this discovery, they’d learned to take advantage of the new hangout spot. In the summer, they would spend the warm afternoons up there with a few magazines or comics and cherry popsicles. When they grew into their teens, the popsicles turned to stolen bottles of wine, and afternoons with magazines turned to late night conversations. They’d talk about everything from politics and what they wanted out of life to school gossip, what super power would be coolest to have, and whether Tweety Bird was actually a boy or a girl. (Harry was right, by the way, in that he was a boy, but Louis argued it didn’t really matter if it was that hard to tell without Google. That, and the fact that it he was just a cartoon canary.)

It wasn’t until they were fifteen that Anne finally caught them up there. They usually knew to climb down before she got home from work or only go up after she went to bed. One night, they were being too rowdy and when the laughing woke Anne up, she cared more about the volume of their voices than where they actually were. By that age, she figured they were old enough to not do something dumb to make themselves fall off.

Unfortunately, that assumption was made too early when Louis bet Harry that he couldn’t walk the perimeter. He made it two thirds of the way around before losing his balance. Louis rushed to grab his arm before he fell, but by the time he made it to the edge, it was too late. His too-long limbs flailed as he screamed through the fall. Luckily, they were only one floor up and Harry landed on the grass instead of the driveway. He walked, or rather, limped, away with a twisted ankle, but it was nothing that couldn’t easily heal.

Now, at ages 17 and 18, not much has changed and they still would often sit out on the roof whenever they got the chance. Anne happened to be working a night shift tonight as well, so there was really nothing stopping them. For at least an hour they talked about the usual nothing-important until Louis could decide when the right time would be to get Harry to open up about Gillian. He knew from experience that it wouldn’t take too long for him to confess.

“So did you dump her?” Louis asked while holding out the whiskey bottle. Harry took a large gulp this time, regretting it as soon as the burning liquid slid down his throat.

“Not exactly,” he replied as he handed it back, wincing at the flavour.

“What do you mean “not exactly”? Are you going to?”

Harry took a deep breath, letting the cool night air fill his lungs as he looked out at the array of houses in front of them. Some completely dark, some still with lights on and their owners watching TV or getting ready to head off to bed. Seeing other people go about their own lives was calming when you feel like yours is falling apart. Especially at 17 when you know there’s still so much more to come. More heartbreak, loss, stress, change. Soon, he wouldn’t even remember what it felt like to have his girlfriend cheat on him as a teenager.

“I don’t know. I’m going to her house tomorrow to talk to her.”

“Weird. I always assumed cheating would result in an automatic break up,” Louis side eyed as he took a swig, holding the bottle by its neck.

“I just want to hear her out. Maybe we can work through things.”

Throughout their relationship, it seemed as if no one except Harry knew why he stayed with Gillian. They didn’t work together no matter how you looked at it. Gillian was ambitious and independent while Harry was much more of a free-spirit. Regardless, Harry was also young and naïve and claimed he loved her, even though he’d never actually told her that. He sometimes even wondered himself if he really did feel that way.

“Remember that girl I told you I was kind-of seeing? Sam?”

“I remember being unsure of her existence when you said she lived across town, but yes.”

Louis elbowed him when he started to laugh.

“Anyway, we weren’t really ever together. She didn’t want to make anything exclusive. Kept saying she wasn’t ready for a real relationship. Eventually, she told me there had been someone else the whole time and she wanted to be with them. So much for not being ready, eh?”

“I’m sorry, man,” Harry placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“No, I’m fine, really. The point was, there was someone else. I wasn’t the one that was supposed to be with her and after I found out, I didn’t want to be anyway. I learned to move on.”

“So all you’re saying is that I should move on?”

“You deserve so much better than her. She’s just uses you as someone to hang off of and show off. She’s taking advantage of your loyalty.”

Harry looked up to the sky as he exhaled, “I don’t want to give up so easily.”

“That’s exactly what I mean! Harry, look at me,” Louis started. They were both lounging back on their elbows and Louis turned onto his side to look Harry in the eyes, “I am your best friend and you know I’m only going to tell you the truth.”

Harry nodded understandingly and he swallowed another sip.

“Someday you are going to meet someone that makes you feel like you’re on top of the world. They will make you happy and love you more than anything or anyone else. You’re so kind and caring and you need someone who can give to you as much as you give to them. You know as well as I do that Gillian isn’t that person, but you will find them. I hate seeing you unhappy when you deserve the universe and more.”

As he spoke, Louis wasn’t sure if he spent more time looking between Harry’s eyes or staring at his lips.

“You really think all of those things?” Harry asked slowly, holding steady eye contact

“Of course I do.”

It could’ve been because he was a little more than tipsy or maybe he was still feeling the needy aftermath of having Sam dump him, but all he wanted to do was pull Harry in close and press their lips together.

At the same time, Harry was his best friend since they were little kids. They grew up together and knew everything there was to know about one another. Maybe that was why he suddenly felt such a strong connection to him in the moment.

The seconds seemed to go by in a blur as Louis leaned in closer, Harry’s smile falling slightly, but it didn’t stop him from doing the same. Louis brought one hand up to cup his cheek and before he could even register what was happening, his eyes were falling closed and their lips were meeting in a soft peck.

Louis pulled away a few inches to open his eyes, attempting to read Harry’s reaction. It was hard to tell what he was thinking as his eyes flickered back and forth between Louis’, but he was quick to get rid of the space between them once more.

This was so much different than any other kiss Harry had had. It wasn’t as soft as he was used to and much sloppier, but nothing about it seemed wrong. Not even the clear taste of alcohol between their mouths took away from how oddly perfect it felt.

Pulling him closer with one hand on Louis’ hip, Harry used the other to caress just below his jaw, tracing the bone with his thumb. The action was gentle, but Louis’ attempt to push him onto his back was enough to accidentally knock over the whiskey. The nudge of his hip sent the half-empty bottle quickly rolling off the edge and plummeting to the ground. The smash onto the driveway was loud enough to wake everyone in the surrounding houses and cause both of them to jump back.

Louis slid over to one side so he could lean over and see the shattered glass.

“Shit, we should clean that up,” mumbled Louis, trying to mask the sudden discomfort in his voice.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Harry sat up, pulling one knee to his chest.

Harry couldn’t help but feel like they might’ve just made a huge mistake. These feelings were always something he considered, but never imagined acting on until now. His brain felt like a scrambled egg, and not the good kind like your mum would make on a Sunday morning. This was 24-hour truck stop scrambled eggs that someone splattered ketchup all over just to mask the crunchy, overcooked edges.

“I don’t think I can drive home,” Louis added, stumbling towards the window they climbed through.

“You know you can always stay here,” Harry said with a half-smile, trying anything that would bring reassurance that they were okay and didn’t just completely fuck up twelve years of friendship with one kiss.

Once the mess was cleaned up and they were crawling into Harry’s bed to do nothing but sleep, they were too drunk to articulate what just happened or even form a coherent thought. All Harry knew was that something in the back of his mind was hoping that that kiss wouldn’t be their last. Every other part of him worried he wouldn’t even remember it happened.


	3. Accelerando

Right after breakfast was finished the band students had to get on the bus to begin the next part of their journey. Even still, there was one room of guys that made the rest of them wait because apparently, none of them heard the wake up call. Miss Hammond sent Louis to wake them up since she needed someone loud. Pounding on the door and yelling in the empty hallway wasn’t exactly what she meant, but it worked.

Noon hadn’t even rolled around yet when the group arrived at the camp. Well, arrived at an open field surrounded by trees with a small opening that lead to a lake. The sky held a slight overcast on the site of their arrival, making the cold, dewy grass even more evident. They had been warned about team building activities before the trip even began. However, Miss Hammond didn’t exactly clarify the extent to how intense these activities would be.

As the students stepped off the bus in a line, they were met by a camp coordinator who was stood in front of what seemed to be an obstacle course. Beside her was a pile of small backpacks and she had a clipboard in hand. With a grin spread across her face, she instructed everyone to gather around her so she could explain what exactly was happening.

“Hey guys! I’m Michelle and I’ll be your head camp counsellor for the next few days,” she chirped enthusiastically. “As you can see, there is no actual camp here exactly. To get to it, you guys will have to work together with your classmates to make it through a series of events.”

A few groans sounded through the group, but Michelle was quick to keep the spirit high, “Trust me, it’ll be fun! Plus, the winning team gets first in line for meals and first dibs on cabin rooms.”

“Not this shit again,” Louis nudged Harry.

After a long explanation and countless questions, Michelle was eventually satisfied with everyone’s understanding of the challenge. The group was to be divided into teams of four, once again assigned by Miss Hammond, to complete three events. First was a blindfolded relay race in which each person must rely on the guidance from their team to complete the course. After each member got through, they were to head down a short path to the lake where they would canoe to the other end. Louis wasn’t even sure he’d ever been in a canoe, much less race in one across a lake.

Upon reaching the other side, they would be given instructions on how to get through the wooded area that’s trails where cut like a maze, collecting tags through a scavenger hunt as they walked. The first team to make it to the picnic tables outside the mess hall (“It’s the biggest building, you can’t miss it,” Michelle assured) would be declared the winners.

As well, the person who was appointed team captain would receive a backpack for their team containing a compass, _Survivor_ -style coloured bandanas, water bottles, and instructions for the scavenger hunt.

“Alright, time for teams,” Miss Hammond stepped to the front of the group, “Casey, Logan, Niall, Mason,” she started reading off names from a clipboard.

People began gathering in their groups, some solemnly like Casey, who didn’t end up with any of her friends. Hammond reassured, however, that the groups were completely randomized.

When she got to the final two, Louis was growing anxious about who, along with himself, remained to be picked.

“Liam, Zayn, Sarah, and Nicole. And finally, Amy, Gillian, Harry, and Louis.”

From a few feet away, Gillian looked between Harry and Louis, not sure if she should be happy or angry about her group. Sure she was with her best friend as well as her boyfriend, but she was also stuck with, in simplest terms, her worst enemy.

The four of them gathered awkwardly in a semi-circle, standing at quite the distance from each other. Everyone was thinking the same thing, but no one was about to say it out loud. Instead, the first order of business had to be to choose team captain.

“I’ll be captain,” Louis and Gillian both called out at the same time before they eyes met with a glare.

“Like hell you will,” Louis scoffed in her direction.

“You really think you’re capable of organizing this team? I seriously doubt it,” she folded her arms.

“I’d rather get last place than listen to you boss us around for this entire competition.”

“I know. Why don’t we let Harry decide?” Gillian smirked, stepping closer to Harry. She snaked one hand around his waist and placed the other on his chest, looking up at him with a playful grin. Louis had to try to keep his breakfast down after witnessing that.

“I, um- Well I think- How about Amy decides?” Harry suggested once he untwisted his tongue. The colour was draining from his face and Louis found some odd satisfaction in the fact that he refused to pick Gillian over him, even though he wouldn’t pick him over Gillian, either.

“Amy?” Gillian whipped her head around, but Louis already knew he lost at this point.

“Sorry, Louis, you know I have to pick Gillian,” Amy said as sweetly as she could.

“That settles it, then,” she took a step away from Harry, “I’ll go get the backpack.”

Her blonde curls that were pulled back into a ponytail bounced as she jogged over to Michelle. Amy looked back at Harry and Louis, almost sympathetically.

“She’s really not that bad, Louis,” Amy pointed out.

“You have to say that, you’re her friend. It’s fine. I’m sure Harry would agree with you. Right?” Louis looked up at Harry, who was almost startled by the mention of his name.

“Yeah, of course,” he assured.

Condescendingly, Louis repeated, “Of course.”

Gillian soon returned with the backpack and a satisfied grin. She distributed the orange bandanas that they’d been given to complete their camper look. Louis tied his around his upper arm while Gillian went for around the knee and Harry and Amy folded theirs up to use as a headband.

When it came time to line up for the relay race, Amy volunteered to go first and Michelle handed out blindfolds for the first runners to put on. Gillian stood behind Amy, ready to guide her through the course. At the back of the line, Louis stood with his arms crossed and one hip cocked, deciding whether he should just throw the whole competition to begin with. He knew for a fact that there was a pool and bonfire waiting at that campsite and he wanted to get there with minimal physical strain.

To make it to the other end of the course, you first had to weave through a maze of pylons that were positioned close together in a zig-zag pattern, without knocking any of them over. After that, there were rows of footballs, only one of which had to be kicked into the kid-sized orange net. The last obstacle before heading back to the start was a 6 foot tall barricade you had to climb with only a rope to help you get to the other side. Once your feet were back on the ground, you could remove your blindfold and run back to your team, handing the blindfold to the next person in line. Throughout each turn, the other teammates were in charge of yelling out directions for the runners to go in, but everyone yelling at the same time didn’t exactly make it any easier.

As Louis’ other three teammates took their turns, each seemingly had a problem with a different part of the course. Being the first to go, Amy couldn’t figure out what way she was facing while attempting the pylon maze. She would wonder off to the left, sure she was still going in a straight line despite Gillian and Harry’s demands to turn around. Gillian, on the other hand, didn’t quite have the upper-body strength to pull herself over the barricade, matched with the fact that it was already almost a foot taller than her to begin with. For Harry, no matter how many times he kicked the footballs, he couldn’t manage to get any in the actual net. They kept bouncing off the sides or rolling right past it.

When it finally came to Louis’ turn, he pulled the blindfold over his eyes and was suddenly introduced to a world with only four senses. He was tempted to lift the bottom up just slightly so he could see below the fabric, but he knew he’d get an earful from the rest of his team if he even tried to cheat.

Upon only stepping into the pylon maze, Louis walked right into one of the orange cones. He stopped for a moment, trying to compose himself, while hearing Gillian giggle and call out, “You know you’re supposed to avoid those, right?”

No one could tell, but he definitely rolled his eyes.

“Just take a step to the right then two diagonal steps left, Louis!” Amy shouted eagerly.

After that one instruction, Louis’ actions became seamless as he maneuvered through the course. When he reached the football section, he kicked the ball in the net on the first try, earning cheers from his team and even some others who were just shocked to see someone make it on the first kick. Running up the barricade, Louis felt around for the rope to hoist himself over.

“Where’s the rope?” he yelled out to his team, unable to find where it was hanging.

“Shit, I think I pulled it over the other side with me when I ran,” Harry looked at Gillian and Amy with worry before cupping his hands around his mouth, “It’s not there, you’ll have to jump!”

“What do you mean ‘jump’?” But there was really no explanation necessary. With only one option in mind, he shook he arms out to prepare himself. Taking a few steps back, he took a deep breath and hoped he was still lined up with the wall.

“Go for it, Lou!” Harry shouted encouragingly and clapped his hands a few times. Gillian narrowed her eyes, sure she was about to witness him fall flat on his ass.

After three long strides, he leaped forward with his arms out, grabbing onto the top surface. Throwing one leg over, he jumped down and tore off the blindfold. His eyes became exposed to the bright sunlight once again.

Louis was met by an eruption of cheers as he sprinted back to his team. Even Gillian was clapping for his return, but her expression remained unamused. Two other teams had already finished, leaving them in third place out of six teams. The only teams in front of them were Blue: Liam and Zayn’s, and Red: Niall and Mason’s. They were going to have to paddle really hard during the next event if they wanted to catch up.

Michelle was waiting on the small, rocky beach, surrounded by eight canoes and enough paddles for everyone and more.

“You can each grab a paddle and a life jacket and take two canoes across the lake. Just keep straight ahead and you’ll see where to dock,” she instructed as they scrambled to get the boats into the water.

“C’mon, let’s take this one,” Harry pulled Louis to the closest canoe by his upper arm. Louis couldn’t help but notice Gillian’s quick look of hurt, maybe even jealousy. However, just as fast she get over it and jumped into the front of the canoe she’d have to share with Amy.

The boat rocked lightly back and forth as they all pulled the life jackets over their heads and buckled them around their waists. They were bulky and hard to see over or move around in, but it was a lot better than possibly drowning.

Harry sat on the narrow plank at the front of their canoe, beginning to paddle on the left side. Following suit, Louis stuck his in the green, algae filled lake water and pushed backwards. Slowly, they turned to the left while Gillian and Amy somehow managed to keep their boat straight. Harry turned around to see if he could find the issue and dropped his shoulders upon discovery.

“Lou, you have to paddle on the opposite side of me,” Harry told him, voice light with amusement.

“I’ve never been in a canoe before,” Louis groaned as he swapped sides, dripping water across the boat as he did so.

“At least we know who the Least Valuable Player on the team is,” Gillian observed as they passed them with ease, practically gliding across the water. “Hurry up. We can’t afford to waste any more time.”

“We’re in third place, Gill. I can see Sarah and Nicole’s boat from here. Relax,” Amy stated thoughtfully. Gillian didn’t respond, just continued staring ahead of her like she hadn’t even heard Amy speak at all.

The first few minutes on the lake remained relatively quiet and peaceful. There was no telling if it was from the calmness the nature brought, or the tension building within the team.

In the early afternoon hours, birds sang from the trees and the sunlight sparkled on the water. Glancing behind him, Louis noticed the next team gaining up on them. He remained unbothered, but as soon as Gillian took notice, she’d make everyone turn full competitive mode. Unless, of course, there was a distraction.

“Hey, is that a deer over there?” Louis motioned to the bushes next to Amy and Gillian’s boat.

“What are you-” Gillian began as she turned her head to look, but was interrupted by the splash of water Louis sent her way with his paddle.

“What the hell?!” she shrieked dropping her own into the lake as she threw her hands up to wipe the water from her eyes.

“Sorry, I was getting bored! Here, you can do it to me back,” Louis promised, spreading his arms out to look like a target.

“Wait, your paddle,” Amy pointed the floating piece of wood and leaned over the side to reach it.

“Amy, no!” Gillian shouted when she felt the canoe tip, but it was too late. Water spilled over the edge and before they knew it they were two heads bobbing in the lake and Harry and Louis were losing it laughing. The life jackets stopped their heads from going under, but the lake was still freezing and made their bodies almost numb. The ridiculousness of the situation triggered them to start cracking up too.

The initial round of laughter was short lived when a buzzing sounded near Louis’ head. In a moment of panic, he let out a scream that didn’t sound like it should have come from a human, and scrambled to the front of the boat. Since canoes aren’t exactly designed to be walked around in, one wrong step caused a quick flip. Harry and Louis hit the water between Amy and Gillian, splashing them both as they fell in.

“Louis!” Harry groaned, trying to get the wet hair out of his face.

“There was a bee!” he shouted in defense, struggling to move around with the life jacket around his neck.

“For the record, that wasn’t a bee. It was a fly,” Gillian remarked as the four of them floated in the lake, not even beginning to think of how exactly they were going to get out of this.

“But it very well could’ve been,” Louis argued.

“Bees won’t even hurt you, though,” Harry pointed out.

“Are we really going to argue about this right now? We have to get back in the boats,” Gillian stressed as she swam towards the capsized canoe. She held the bag above her head in an attempt to save its contents, but half of it was already soaked. “And I’m going with Harry this time.”

“We won’t be able to get back in them. You have to get in from higher up otherwise they’ll keep tipping over,” Amy said.

“Then what do you suggest we do?” There was murder in her eyes along with smudged eyeliner and mascara. Her once neatly coiled hair was now flat to her head with pieces stuck to her face. She looked a mess and it was clear the competition was getting to her head. Louis found himself almost feeling bad for her. Almost.

“We could relax and enjoy the water,” Louis offered, pushing himself to float on his back. Gillian shot him a dirty look.

“When they find his body, make sure I get the credit,” she said to Amy, deadpanned.

Apparently, in their distressed state, some sort of higher power took pity on them and sent them a saving grace in the form of their own classmates. Two other canoes approached them and the team happily offered them a lift back to shore. They thanked them over and over as two of them were lifted into each boat. Canoes of that size aren’t typically built to support four people, but they’d have to make-do until they could get to shore.

With cold, wet clothes stuck to his body and his hair matted onto his head, Louis, glanced at Harry who was sitting in the opposite canoe with Gillian’s back resting against his chest.

“You know, I’ve never noticed this before, but when wet you kind of look like a baby Tarzan,” Louis smirked, squinting from the sun in his eyes.

Harry mocked offence with a dropped jaw, but was quick to retort, “Better than the wet dog you got going on there. But a cute wet dog, like a Yorkie.”

“You’ve never seen a Yorkie wet, have you?” Amy asked amusingly.

Maybe it was the heat or the exhaustion or just how outlandish they all felt, but once Gillian started giggling at Amy’s question, it sent a chain reaction through them all. For the first time that day, they no longer felt like four people that were forced to work together for some dumb competition. They were just a few friends hanging out like it was the activity was meant to be all along.

Moments later, Louis turned around in his seat so he and Amy were face to face. “Amy, can I ask you something?”

He decided now was as good a time as ever to clear up some rumors that had been spreading through the band.

“Go for it.”

“Are you and Niall together or…?”

“No,” she denied, but smiled mysteriously. Louis figured that was answer enough.

When they made it back to shore, reality set in that they would have to complete the scavenger hunt portion in their damp clothes since they had nothing to change into. Harry, however, had a different idea. Pulling his shirt over his head, he rung out the water onto the rocky beach and tucked one end of it into the back of his shorts.

“Are you about to clean a pool while a rich housewife watches from her living room?” Louis asked with a raised brow. He stretched out the bottom of his own shirt on front of him to ring out the water as well without actually taking it off.

“Is it seducing you?” Harry replied, trying to make his voice low, but cracked up before he got through the question.

“Do I look like one of the _Desperate Housewives_ to you?”

“Alright, quit flirting, we have tags to find,” Amy shuffled through the space between them with a small map in one hand and a compass in the other. The map was only to find the tags they had to collect for the scavenger hunt, not the actual location of the camp. She figured that if the direction of the camp was west, they could keep walking on whatever path was going that way until they reached the site.

Since the team that helped them out risked their own time to do so, they offered them a head start to give them a bit of an advantage. That left their team in fourth place, but a sudden all-around boost of confidence left them certain they still had a chance at winning.

Gillian took the lead on the first dirt trail, something Louis grew to be perfectly fine with throughout the day. He’d never admit it to her face, but she was a natural leader. She deserved to be in charge.

“We have to take the first right up here that should lead us to a giant rock,” Amy told her.

“And that’s where the first tag should be? We only have to find five, right?” replied Gillian, stopping to peek over her shoulder.

“Yes, but if we finish with these two,” Amy pointed to the map, circling an area off to one side with her finger, “It’ll be easier to reach the camp from there.”

Harry and Louis walked behind them, only half listening to what was going on between the girls. Louis was a few steps ahead, the trail not being wide enough for them to walk side by side. When they strolled by a thin extended tree branch, Louis slowly bent it forward. As he passed, the branch snapped back and hit Harry directly across his bare chest.

“Ow! What the hell?” Harry exclaimed, placing a hand over the tiny red mark that was starting to just barely swell.

“How practical is that shirt sounding now?”

Hardly even having a chance to laugh to himself, Louis felt something whip against his bum, causing him to yelp. He turned around to see Harry holding a long stick with a smirk on his face.

“Hey, it was an accident!” Louis claimed, grabbing over the back of his denim shorts.

“Mhmm,” responded Harry as used the stick to scrape against trees out of boredom.

When Louis spotted another stick of similar size on the ground, he picked it up and held it vertically with two hands near the bottom. With a stern expression, he spun around with a jump to face Harry.

“Hello. My name is Louis Tomlinson. You slapped my ass with a stick. Prepare to die.” His own version of the _Princess Bride_ quote sparked an immediate reaction in Harry who mirrored the stance.

“You should know, I only have five fingers on my right hand.”

“That’s all it took for you to defile my bum.”

Stepping forward, Harry began the stick-sword battle. They hit the sticks against each other in the style of fencing, even though neither had any clue what they were doing. Harry got one good hit on Louis’ hip while Louis only struck Harry’s thigh. He was slightly worried he’d hurt him by hitting his bare skin again.

“ _You_ should know, I’m not left-handed.” Louis repeated another line from the movie.

“I can tell, since you’re using your right hand,” Harry laughed, almost tripping over a tree root that was sticking out of the ground. The stumble was enough for Louis to knock the stick right out of his hand. Gaining the advantage, he pointed his own make-shift sword at Harry’s face.

“Do you surrender?” Louis cocked an eyebrow and Harry raised his hands weakly with a look of defeat.

“Not to interrupt your sword battle or anything, but we found the first tag,” Gillian informed them. She held the orange tag in the air, letting it dangle off one finger. The boys froze and turned their heads to face her, taken back to reality. “Help with finding the next one would be greatly appreciated.”

“As you wish,” Harry replied in a soft voice and Louis completely broke character to throw his head back into laughter. Gillian didn’t catch on, so she just shook her head and jumped down from the rock from which she retrieved the tag.

Louis tossed the stick to the side as they continued along the trail. Amy ended up leading the group so they could find another two tags. One was in a sideways log and the other was buried in the sand near the lake.

The sun beat down on them in the afternoon heat. As he wiped the sweat from his forehead, Louis was starting to think Harry had the right idea going sans-shirt, but after all the teasing he did earlier, he couldn’t give in and copy him now.

They’d be lying if the boys said they were any help to Amy and Gillian during the hunt. All Harry and Louis were really doing was following them around while they did most of the work. It seemed to be working fine, until Amy decided she had enough.

“You guys should find the next one,” she stopped in her tracks and turned to face them.

“But you were doing such a great job,” Louis commented, as if the compliment would actually get them out of doing their part.

“Nice try. The next one is on a tree. Either of you good at climbing?”

Amy pointed up to the tree they were standing under. Colourful tags hung scattered from different branches. Of course the orange one was highest, at least halfway up the tree.

“Looks like it’s your time to shine, baby Tarzan,” Louis looked at Harry who was quick to shake his head.

“Are you kidding? I can’t climb a tree. Besides, you’re smaller and probably more agile.”

“Agile? I’m not a bloody monkey.”

“To be fair,” Gillian stepped in, “Harry is pretty clumsy.”

She wasn’t exactly wrong. Harry had a history if tripping over stands in the band room while setting up. And there was this one time he fell down the stairs in between classes. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he didn’t fall while on the way up.

He used to get embarrassed quite easily because of it, but he learned to laugh at himself over the years. Louis would like to think he played a part in helping him achieve that.

“Fine. I’ll climb the tree,” Louis huffed. He stepped closer to assess the situation and determine his first move, eyes following up the trunk.

Carefully, he placed one foot on a low branch and pulled himself up by holding on the next one above his head. Once he got a good grip, he swung one leg over the higher branch so he could sit on it. When he looked down, he realized he wasn’t even two meters off the ground and he had about five more to go.

“You got this, Lou,” Harry shouted just as he was about to make his next step. His hands were already shaky from nerves and the sudden noise made his foot slip. Luckily he had a good enough grip not to fall.

“As much as I appreciate the encouragement, I’d like to return home from this trip alive,” Louis said.

After a few more maneuvers and near falls, Louis finally reached the tag and ripped it off on the highest branch. The purple team would be thanking them when they got there. The branch their tag was on was too thin to step onto and Louis ended up snapping it right off the tree.

Tucking the tag into his pocket, he looked down to see where he could safely step. He was much higher than he thought. The other three looked like mice on the ground.

“Just take it slow and you’ll be fine,” Amy called up to him. He nodded in response, not caring that she couldn’t see.

Louis never thought of himself to have a fear of heights, but the ground looked so far away and he suddenly felt so weak. His whole body was shaking and every bit of his attention was focused on not falling to his death. But he’d be fine, really. Climbing a tree wasn’t all that hard. It’s not like he’d never done it before. Although, those were just small trees around town when he was little while this was a forest and the tree was bigger than any building back home.

Just as everything seemed to be going fine, he felt himself sinking on a branch before a crack echoed through the woods. He tried to grab onto something, but the ground was getting closer far too fast. He didn’t even have enough time to panic before he fell hard onto the grass. What he wasn’t expecting was for his fall to be cushioned by two arms grabbing around his torso and landing with him.

After taking a second to recover, he rolled over so he wasn’t laying on top of Harry. There was a throbbing in his right hip that he landed on and his hands and elbows were a bit scraped up, but his injuries weren’t any more than small cuts and bruises.

“Are you okay?” Harry asked, placing a hand on Louis’ shoulder for comfort. He glanced over him to look for any immediate injuries.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Are _you_ okay? I didn’t think you had the ability to catch a falling body.”

“Considering we’re both on the ground, I don’t think I do.”

Louis reached into his pocket and pulled out the tag. He looked up to Gillian and Amy who were kneeling near them as well and handed it over to them.

“At least I got it,” he acknowledged cheerfully.

Once they stood up and brushed any dirt off of themselves, the four of them rushed to gather the last tag that was hidden in a berry bush just next to the trail.

Harry began to notice how distant Gillian was now acting towards him. Any time he’d try to walk next to her or even hold her hand, she would speed up or fold her arms together. He tried his best to shrug it off. For all he knew, he was just imagining things.

None of them had any idea what place they were in at that point. They hadn’t passed anyone on the trails, but there was no set order to collect the tags in so theoretically, they still had a chance at winning.

Unfortunately, their arrival proved otherwise when they emerged from the woods only to find the majority of their classmates waiting around picnic tables for the final teams to finish.

“Team Orange arrives in fifth place!” Michelle announced gleefully as they trudged across the grass, exhausted. They weren’t surprised by their ranking out of the seven teams and at that point didn’t really care. With all of the roadblocks they faced, they were happy just to not be last.

“Who won?” Louis asked to no one in particular as they neared closer.

“Team Yellow,” Miss Hammond pointed towards the all-girl team, who also happened to all be roommates. So much for getting first pick on a room.

After the final teams got back, Michelle officially announced the top three places and the group cheered as each name was called. Team Yellow, of course, was in first. Team Red, which Niall and Mason were on, placed second and coming in third was Team Blue, with Zayn and Liam.

When it finally came time to tour the camp and assign residences, everyone was more than ready to take a break and clean up before the rest if the day’s activities.

The camp consisted of five different buildings that were scattered within the wooded area. Two of them were the cabins, one for boys and one for girls. Between them was the mess hall where they’d be eating all their meals for the next couple of days. Next to the pool was the activities building that was used for leisure equipment and storage. The largest building was the stage where they would be rehearsing for the final festival.

As they toured, Louis walked near the back of the group with Harry and couldn’t help noticing that Gillian was right up front, ignoring Harry completely. Part of him wondered if something had happened between them. Maybe that wouldn’t exactly be a terrible thing. That was before he remembered that he just spent the last two hours with them while they seemed perfectly fine. The thought only reminded it him that he really needed a shower. And maybe a nap.

 

With a book hovering over his head and one leg hanging off the side of the bed, Harry wasn't sure how else to spend his few hours of down time before they had to leave for dinner. He tried to take a nap since he woke up so early that morning and the competition wore him out, but he couldn’t even begin to doze off. As for his roommates, Louis and Zayn had snuck out for a cigarette. Niall, not normally a smoker himself, said that we was meeting Amy by the pool instead.

The rooms they were staying in all turned out to be pretty similar, except for the amount of stains on the patterned wallpaper and scratches on the floor and furniture. Some may call it “rustic charm”, others would say it was in need of a long-overdue renovation.

Instead of double beds, they had two sets of wooden bunk beds with a small window between them. Louis was first to claim a top bunk while Harry took the one below him. Niall called dibs on the other top bunk, under the proclamation that his team did place highest out of the four of them, so Zayn was left with the last bottom one.

The atmosphere Harry had originally created with the curtains drawn and a peaceful acoustic playlist he made on his phone was soon interrupted by the sudden padding of feet down the hall towards his door and three rowdy teenagers barging in.

"Jesus, lock the door next time," Liam teased and covered his eyes under the impression that they just walked in on something he didn’t exactly want to see.

"Or save it for the shower. We are sharing this room, you know," Louis added with Zayn trailing in behind them.

"You guys are hilarious," Harry regarded flatly before closing his book and letting it fall next to him onto the comforter. "And you all reek like smoke." He rubbed his eyes sleepily when Liam flicked on the light switch and lounged lazily on Zayn’s bunk

"It's Liam's new cologne," Louis stated as he sat at the foot of Harry’s bed.

"Hey!" Liam whined. An amused Zayn crawled up beside him, comforting him with a kiss on his shoulder.

Harry sat up with a dazed look in his eye, throwing the book into his suitcase and brushing his hair back into place with his hands. When he met Louis' gaze, his expression seemed concerned.

"You okay?" Harry mouthed.

Louis took a slow breath, holding it a few moments before letting the air out.

"Can we take a walk?" he said instead, already standing up.

"Uh, yeah, of course," Harry complied and followed him to the door.

His mind immediately began racing trying to figure out what all of this could be about. Did he do something wrong? Was something upsetting Louis? Or maybe he just wanted a break from the other guys. Whatever it was, he didn’t sound excited about it.

"Don't fuck in our room while we're gone," Louis called out to Zayn and Liam, only half joking. He shut the door before they could reply.

Stuffing his hands into his pockets Louis turned to the left and began to stroll down the carpeted hallway towards the side exit. He opened the door for Harry without a word, diverting his eyes to the ground or in front of him. Harry noticed that his face was turning pale and he was getting anxious.

When they emerged onto the grass near the mess hall, they started their first lap around the perimeter of the camp. Screams and laughing could be heard from the pool area where most people were spending their time. Harry made a mental note to suggest they head there before dinner.

"So, I wanted to talk to you about something," Louis started, still looking down at his shoes, "Or tell you something, I guess. You probably already know, or at least suspected it, but I wanted to tell you. You know, formally."

If Harry was being honest, he had no idea what Louis was about to say. He always figured they knew everything about each other. At the same time, there was still the one thought that has been eating away at him for the last few weeks. But he didn't want to assume or, rather, get his hopes up.

"What's going on, Lou?"

"Remember the night that I brought over a bottle of whiskey and we climbed up on your roof?"

Harry nodded quickly, gulping as he did so. Of course he remembered that night. He hadn't been able to think about anything else since that night. It was just that, after so long of waiting, he already convinced himself that Louis didn't.

"You know how you were upset about Gillian and I was upset about that girl I just broke up with- Sam?"

"Sure," Harry said hesitantly, not wanting to rush him.

"Well, um, Sam was a guy."

"Oh."

"Harry, I'm gay."

Louis held his breath as soon as the words tumbled out. He didn’t seem scared or nervous about saying it so much as relieved to finally get it out. Harry was always supportive and encouraging towards Louis and that would never change. Right now, Harry felt proud of him. Proud that he built up the courage to tell him and no longer felt like he needed to hide.

It was then he realized this moment wasn't about him or _them_. It was just about Louis and him needing a friend. He trusted Harry and wanted nothing more than to have him there at his side in that moment.

Unsure how to really articulate how he was feeling, Harry instead stopped walking to pull Louis into a tight hug. Louis accepted it gratefully, wrapping one arm behind Harry's neck and the other around his waist. He nuzzled his nose into Harry’s shoulder, feeling safe in the embrace.

"Thank you for telling me," Harry muttered in his ear before releasing him.

"I haven't told anyone else except Sam I guess, so please don't say anything. I just wanted to tell you first."

"I would never. But I am glad you told me."

"There's something else," Louis continued, taking a step back before walking again, "I know you never brought it up because it just a mistake, but we should at least acknowledge that we kissed."

In a second, all of the air was gone from Harry's lungs and the colour drained from his face. He tried to keep his pace and footing steady as he walked. Parting his lips to speak, he ended up closing them again. _It wasn't a mistake!_ he wanted to scream _, I'm actually probably in love with you!_

Instead, he let Louis finish.

"I know that you're dating Gillian and that we were both drunk and upset and probably feeling needy. I get that it shouldn't have happened so I just wanted to say that I'm sorry so we can forget about it."

Just like that, Harry could feel his heart physically drop. That was nowhere near the statement he was expecting, never mind hoping for. No matter how much he didn’t like it, he still had to respect Louis’ wished.

With glazed over eyes and a hollow chest, Harry cleared his throat. His voice was shallow. "There's nothing to apologize for.”

"I hope this doesn't change anything. You're my best friend, after all."

"Why would it change anything?" Harry forced a smile, finally meeting his eyes.

"I love you, man," Louis patted his back as they rounded back to the front door.

"Love you, too," Harry answered easily, very aware of the fact that the meaning of the statement had to be much different than “I'm in love with you.”


	4. Vibrato

When Harry and Louis arrived back at the cabin, Zayn and Liam were already gone. As if on cue, Harry’s phone dinged with a text saying they decided to head down to the pool and that they should meet them there. Louis was all for the idea and, even though he was still feeling quite exhausted, Harry agreed to join the group anyways.

They changed into their swimming shorts and found towels in the hallway closet near the shared bathroom. After slipping into his flip flops, Louis followed Harry back out the front door and down the pavement towards the deck.

The pool was surrounded by a short white-picket fence that encased the large square pool and lounge chairs. On the side with the deep end there was a diving board and short slide that curved into the water. In the shallow end is where most people were gathered, currently engaged in a round of chicken fights. There wasn’t any type of life guard around, but Miss Hammond and Michelle were sat at a nearby picnic table going over plans and semi-supervising.

As soon as Gillian spotted Harry from where she was sitting with her friends, legs dangling in the water over the edge, she called him over. He asked Louis to join them, but he would’ve much rather try out the diving board than hang out with that group. Not that he didn’t like Gillian’s friends, he just couldn’t stand being around Harry and Gillian _together_. All the awkward touching and flirting- he didn’t want any part in having to witness that any more than he was already forced to.

With bare feet, Louis padded along the deck towards the diving board where Liam had just jumped off. His canon ball splashed everyone around him, Louis included.

“How’s the water?” Louis asked Liam once his head emerged from the water, hair sticking to his face.

“Cold!” Liam shouted back as he swam out of the way for Chris to jump next.

“Not as cold as that lake I hope,” Louis muttered to himself, thinking about the misadventure from earlier that day.

Standing at the end of the diving board, Louis curled his toes over the edge and looked down to check the depth below him. After falling from that tree, jumping from four feet above the water was nothing. He tucked his knees up and plugged his nose as he took a leap forward, creating a much smaller splash. Liam was right about the temperature, not quite as cold as the lake, but definitely in need of getting used to.

Louis wiped the water from his face and shook his head to flick the hair out of his eyes so he could see where he was. He spotted Zayn and Liam floating at the side with one arm each resting on the ledge and swam over to join them.

“We were just about to get in on those chicken fights,” Liam told him as he approached, “Niall and Amy challenged us.”

“Amy’s on the girl’s rugby team, there’s no way you could beat her,” Louis scoffed.

“You’re probably right, but we already accepted so there’s no turning back now.”

“You should find a partner and challenge someone next,” Zayn suggested, hanging off Liam’s shoulder.

“Like who? Isn’t that usually a couples game?”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

From the sidelines, Louis watched as Niall and Amy completely kicked Liam and Zayn’s ass. Within 20 seconds, Amy already had Zayn falling backwards off Liam’s shoulders, accidentally dunking him on the way down.

The rest of the group that was hanging around the pool was now fully engaged as an audience and cheered as the winning pair high-fived and climbed out of the pool. During this, Harry appeared next to Louis, sitting down with a smiling face to watch the next round. Louis asked why he was no longer with Gillian and Harry explained she just had to go grab sunscreen from her cabin.

Next up was Casey and Sarah who were looking for another couple to battle against. The two of them were like the female version of Harry and Louis. Lifelong friends that had been through everything together. Only, they probably never kissed and questioned the state of their relationship because of it. Although, who’s to say?

“You want to go against them?” Harry leaned in to speak into Louis’ ear.

“What?”

“C’mon, I’ve been wanting to go for a round.”

“I’ve never even played. I don’t know how,” Louis shrugged, feeling unusually shy.

“’s not that hard. Just get on my shoulders then you do whatever you can to knock the other team over while I keep you balanced."

Louis looked between Harry and where the two girls were waiting in the water. The only thing he knew about this game, besides what Harry just told him, was that it’s banned in most public swimming pools. Not that he was overly cautious, but he had enough near-death experiences for one day. With that said, he couldn’t exactly say no to Harry’s persuasive grin.

“Fine, I’ll do it.”

“Alright, we’re in!” Harry announced to Casey and Sarah, jumping back into the pool. It caused another round of cheering, but anything would get the rowdy group excited at this point. They were acting like drunk college kids at a party, even though they were just a bunch of sober teenage band geeks.

Harry sunk down until only his head could be seen above water so Louis could climb onto his shoulders. It took a second for him to solidify his balance before the round began. Most of Louis’ focus was going towards ignoring the fact that his crotch was right against the back of Harry’s head. Any inappropriate thought his adolescent brain came up with could cause quite an embarrassing problem.

Liam ended up as the referee for the round and recited the countdown. Face to face with Casey, Louis wasn’t exactly sure how to approach knocking her over without actually hurting his opponent. He tried taking hold of her wrists to pull her down, but she was quick to twist out of his hold and grab onto his upper arms.

“We haven’t got a chance, Harry,” Louis said as his struggled against her.

“Not with that attitude, we don’t.”

Somehow, Louis managed to catch her off guard with a twist of her arm so she fell sideways into the pool. He almost tried to catch her to make sure she didn’t fall, until he remembered that’s pretty much the point of the game.

Throwing a fist in the air during the applause, Louis embraced the moment of finally winning something after two days of losing. He let himself fall backwards off Harry before wrapping one arm around him in a celebratory hug.

Harry’s excitement, however, was cut short when he noticed Gillian push through the crowd until she was in his sight. She stood with her hip out, arms crossed, and a scowl.  Without a word spoken, Harry knew exactly what she was thinking. _You were supposed to do that with me, not your supposedly-platonic best friend._ He may have been paraphrasing, but she had definitely used “supposedly-platonic” before.

 

Dinner finally rolled around and the mess hall was bustling as everyone entered to get their meals. The setup was very cafeteria-lunch style, but the food was much better. They were serving hamburgers that were actually barbequed, with salad and grilled potatoes. Even the inside of the building was nicer with slanted ceilings and layered logs along the walls, giving a rustic feel to it.

Holding his tray that contained the plate of food, along with a fork and bottle of water, Harry headed straight towards the all-guys table where most of his friends were. Even Niall, who was more often found at Amy’s side, was sitting with them.

Harry took the seat across from Chris and next to Louis. Near the end of the table, Mason had his laptop open and was back at working on that video, ignoring whatever conversation was going on with the rest of them.

Almost immediately Harry noticed Gillian was sending him a dirty look from across the room. Back at the pool, they had gotten in an argument about the whole ‘chicken fight’ situation. The disagreement was nothing new. She was tired of feeling like he was neglecting her for Louis, and he wasn’t willing to admit that she was completely right. He was probably in love with Louis and hadn’t even considered saying those three words to Gillian. Now he knew he could never mean them anyway, and as soon as they got back from the trip, he’d have to break up with her.

“I hear there’s going to be a bonfire after dinner,” Liam said, holding a piece of potato near his mouth with the fork, “You guys going?”

“Of course,” mumbled Niall with a mouth full of hamburger.

Zayn spoke quieter, leaning into Liam. “I thought we were going to go for a walk after dinner to, you know, find some privacy.” He didn’t mean for anyone else to hear, but Harry was diagonal from the pair and just close enough to catch it.

“We don’t get enough privacy back home?” Liam used the back of his hand to try to block what he was saying.

Zayn didn’t reply, but moved away a distance noticeable by everyone except Liam, apparently, who was still caught up in the bonfire topic. Harry watched as Zayn stared at his plate for a moment. His whole body was still except for his hand as his picked at the salad. The conversation from that morning crossed Harry’s mind and he felt like he should say something, but there was nothing he could do without being too obvious.

“I’m going back to the room for a bit. I’ll meet up with you guys later,” Zayn stood up, gathering his napkin and leftover food back on his tray.

“I’ll come with you. I should probably change anyw-” Harry started, but was cut off by Zayn frantically shaking his head out of view of the others. “Actually, I can wait,” he decided.

Liam tilted his head up, expecting a parting peck on the lips, but Zayn was already walking towards the tray drop-off and out the door. He watched him leave with a confused expression, but let it pass. Harry wanted to shake him by the shoulders and tell him how clueless he was being, but at the same time he felt like he shouldn’t get involved without talking to Zayn first.

Under the table, Louis nudged Harry’s thigh with his knuckle to get his attention. “Is he okay?” he mouthed the words.

“Not sure,” Harry mouthed back. He knew for a fact that he was not okay, but now was not the time or place to explain why.

“Hey, can I borrow your phone?” Louis returned to a normal voice level.

“I left it back in the room. Where’s yours?”

“In your bedroom, actually. Forgot it there when we were in a panic to leave.”

“You can borrow mine,” Liam offered. He pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and slid it across the table towards Louis.

“Thanks, man. You don’t mind if I make a call?”

“Go for it, mate.”

Louis was already dialing a number as he left, following where Zayn had just exited. Harry figured it must have been a call back home to his mum to let her know everything was going well. He’d always been really close to her. It was something Harry found almost endearing.

The rest of dinner went by slowly, but the food was great and the company, well, if Louis stayed it would’ve been better.

 

Sat on a sideways log, Harry was mesmerized by the flames coming from the large fire pit. The night air was humid and filled with the musky wilderness smell mixed with smoke from the burning logs. While the temperature dropped, the bugs started to come out and sweaters came on.

He could really get used to this, he thought. The whole camping and becoming ‘one with nature’ thing. Sometimes, he thought he might be better off without the luxuries he had in his everyday life. Maybe this sort of simplicity was what he needed. No sounds but the gentle cackling of the fire and the singing from birds and crickets, or the branches of trees swaying on a windy day. Always breathing in fresh air and living off the land.

Interrupting his thoughts of becoming some sort of a mountain man, Gillian approached him, clearing her throat.

“We should probably talk,” she leaned into him, but it wasn’t loving or enticing. The action was cold, as to be expected.

“Yeah, we should.” Harry crossed his arms loosely, placing his elbows over his knees and clutching his upper arms. His face was lit orange by the light from the fire, revealing his lack of expression. He knew what was coming, but he wasn’t upset in any way. If anything, he was content.

“Do you think this is still working out? Between us, I mean?”

“Do you?”

Gillian paused to sigh before shaking her head slowly. She rubbed his arm as a small reassurance that there wouldn’t be any bitterness or animosity.

“I’m really sorry. For everything. You deserve someone that’ll treat you better than I have.”

“That’s what Louis said, too,” Harry said passively.

“He’s right. Don’t tell him I agreed with him on something though.” Harry cracked a smile at the comment, making Gillian do the same at his reaction.

“You should know, that day you told me about… you know… we kissed. Him and I. I just thought you should know. You weren’t the only one that had something to feel guilty about. I’m sorry too.”

Harry turned to face her this time to read her expression. He was practically whispering now since they were still surrounded by their other classmates. The rest seemed to be minding their own business, caught up in their own conversation or roasting marshmallows over the coals.

When she didn’t reply he wasn’t surprised, but didn’t hesitate to continue. They’d been through a lot together and regardless, they would always remain good friends. He knew he could still go to her for anything.

“I think I like him,” he added, voice even quieter. This was the first time he admitted it out loud.

“I know.” She wrapped her other arm around him in a half-hug.

Harry couldn’t pretend he didn’t see that answer coming. When they first got together, Gillian repeatedly brought up how close the two of them were. Always hanging off of each other and getting touchy feely while they were joking around. She so much as even claimed it as the reason she cheated. But he went back. Maybe to prove her wrong more than anything. Now, of course, he knew she was right.

“So are you going to go for it?”

“He’s my best friend, I can’t.”

“What’s that matter? Maybe this is what was supposed to happen the whole time. You two idiots were just too blind to figure it out. I see the way you guys look at each other. We all do. I don’t think you’ll be dissapointed with the outcome if you at least try.”

Harry stared at her for a moment, a crease between his eyes. What she was suggesting seemed completely ludacris. What exactly was he supposed to do? Just walk up to him and say “Hey man, I know I’ve known you almost all my life and we practically grew up together, but I think I might actually be in love with you.” Yeah, right. That’s not how life worked. You don’t get to just confess your feelings and have everything work out in the end. His life wasn’t some kind of coming-of-age movie. There was no way in hell that he could possibly-

“Speak of the devil,” Gillian perked up as the man of the hour himself approached them, a cheerful grin plastered across his face.

“You’re no angel, yourself,” Louis remarked as Gillian stood up, nodding towards Casey and Amy who were waving her over.

“I should get back to the girls. I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” she said before skipping back off to her friends.

Louis took her spot next to Harry on the log, disregarding the encounter completely.

“I have to say, for a bonfire party, this is pretty lame,” Louis commented, handing Harry a can of Coke he grabbed from the cooler before sipping on the one he brought for himself.

Harry muttered a thanks as he cracked it open. “I kind of like it. It’s relaxing.”

“I guess. We can have a proper party when we get back though, yeah? Maybe I can introduce you to Sam, even.” Louis said it nonchalantly, but he was totally aware of the new information he was revealing.

“Sam? I thought you guys broke up.”

“We did, kind of. Well, we were never really dating to begin with, but we’ve been talking again recently. When I borrowed Liam’s phone it was to call him and let him know that I forgot my phone. I didn’t want him to think I was ignoring his texts.” Louis stopped for a breath and looked down. “We ended up talking for an hour and I think we’re going to get back together.”

Harry paused to take in the information. “Wasn’t there someone else?”

“Not anymore,” he said simply, seemingly pleased with the revelation. The same couldn’t be said about Harry.

“Why would you want to get back together with someone who picked someone else over you?” he found himself saying without really thinking.

“You’re one to talk,” Louis scoffed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means. Sam didn’t _cheat_ on me. We weren’t dating exclusively and now he said he realized he made the wrong choice,” Louis defended, trying to restrain himself from getting worked up. Harry was supposed to be happy for him and supportive, not questioning his decisions. He knew what was good for himself, he didn’t need Harry telling him.

“Wrong choice? Are you sure you weren’t just the second choice?” Harry knew it was out of anger and pettiness when he said it, but he couldn’t take it back.

Louis’ eyes widened before he could even think of a response. “Why are you being such a twat? You don’t know even know him. You don’t know shit,” he spat. The outburst caused a few heads to turn, but they were past worrying about making a scene.

“Hypocrite,” Harry muttered under a humorless laugh.

“What was that?”

“Remember what you told me on the roof that night? The whole lecture about deserving someone better. Did you actually mean any of that or were you only trying to validate it to make yourself feel better?”

“You know, now that I think of it, nothing that happened on that roof meant anything to me,” he said in a low voice between clenched teeth, tossing his drink to the ground before he stormed off back to the cabin. The pop emptied from the can, fizzing around a stricken Harry’s feet.

“Where are you going?”

“Just leave me alone!”

Harry felt like he’d been punched hard right in the gut. Literally, there was a sharp pain in his stomach that spread up his chest right to his fingertips. What Louis said echoed in his mind and the strain of holding back any tears created a throbbing behind his eyes. Sure Louis had a tendency to be dramatic, but that felt sincere and it hurt.

He and Louis never fought more than a simple argument. Nothing that ever lasted or affected their friendship. Harry thought over what he said, considering that maybe he was unfair to judge Louis’ choices so harshly, but he was too fired up now to apologize. What still remained was the bitterness because Sam had something that Harry wanted, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to change that.

Instead of dwelling, Harry decided he needed a different mindset. He stood up, ignoring the stares from those who overheard the argument (one being from Gillian, who’s gaze offered sympathy that Harry didn’t want) and walked towards the small group of camping chairs where Niall and Zayn were sitting with a few others. Harry squatted next to Niall, putting one hand on his shoulder so he would lean into the whisper.

“Still have those cookies?” he asked. Niall’s mouth curved into a mischievous grin.

“Would you prefer chocolate chip or peanut butter?”

After a quick trip back to the cabin, Harry, Niall, and Zayn were now sat at the back wall of the mess hall, starting to feel the effects of the much needed high. Harry had never smoked in his life, but after cluelessly eating a cookie Louis offered him at a party once, he figured the occasional recreational use wasn’t so bad.

Oddly enough, he remembered the first time Louis got high more than he remembered his own. Louis was out with Zayn one night and the two shared a joint in Zayn’s backyard. He was too young to drive at the time so when it got late, he decided he wanted to walk the few blocks to Harry’s house instead of staying the night at Zayn’s.

In true teenage boy style, he tossed some pebbles at Harry’s window in hopes to wake him up without ringing the doorbell. Of course, in his mindless state, the window turned out to be Gemma’s who had some choice words for him before dragging herself into Harry’s room to wake him up. Harry had to do her laundry for a month after that to make sure she kept her promise of not telling their mum.

When he met Louis at the front door, Louis was giggly and in an overly friendly mood, but mostly he was just hungry. Every stereotype you’d expect from someone who was high. The two walked to the corner store to get slushies, crisps, and candy bars while a 14-year-old Louis recounted the experience, stressing that Harry had to try it at least once. When he finally did a year later, it was never was as great as Louis had described, but he couldn’t forget how amazed and excited Louis seemed that whole night. This was a side of him he often saw, but never quite to that extent. Almost as if he was playing a character. He was like a little kid who just went on his first roller coaster because he was finally tall enough to ride it that summer.

While Niall and Harry rested their backs against the wall, Zayn sat on the grass in front of them with his legs crossed. Harry had just confessed that he and Gillian broke up and Niall and Zayn were taking turns trying to make him feel better. However, the break up wasn’t exactly what he was upset about.

“You’re free now! You can be a bachelor living the high life!”

“When we get back, we need to get you laid.”

“Trust us, man, you’re better off single anyway.”

Harry wondered if Zayn still remembered their bathtub conversation early that morning, but his question was quickly answered when the topic was brought up by Zayn himself.

“Didn’t you say there was someone else you were kind of into?” Zayn asked, steering clear of any specifics. Harry wasn’t thankful for the method because he wanted to keep the secret from Niall, it was more because of his concern about how Louis would feel about so many of their friends knowing. He was already feeling guilty about telling Zayn after what Louis admitted to him that afternoon.

“Really? Do we know this person?” Niall questioned.

“No, they’re from across,” he replied, remembering Louis’ cover-up for Sam.

“And you like this person?” Niall continued while Zayn pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket. He put one between his lips and offered another to Niall, but not Harry. He’d say no anyway.

“Yeah, I think I do,” Harry said easily.

“Then go for it man, seriously. If I were you, I’d be on the phone with them right now asking them out for a coffee or to see a film. You can’t waste any time.”

What Niall was saying wasn’t exactly making any sense in his mind, but he could feel himself getting psyched up. The time it took for the other two to light up their cigarettes- which was approximately five seconds- was enough for Harry to pull out his phone and start scrolling through his contacts.

“You really think I should do this?” he asked with his thumb hovering over the call option.

“Why not?” Niall shrugged as his let out a puff of smoke and really, that was enough to get Harry to stand up and walk towards the little gazeebo near the trees to get some privacy. As he walked away, Zayn shouted “Good luck!” at him before he heard Niall question him about Liam and Louis’ absence.

Harry walked up the wooden stairs and leaned against the railing on one side. The light from his phone shined bright in his face where Louis’ contact picture smiled back at him. It was a photo he took when they were sitting on the bleachers at lunch one time.

For his photography class, he was assigned a project that consisted of candid cell phone photos, and Louis happened to be the subject of most of them since that’s who he spent the most time with. In this particular photo, he was mid laugh at something Liam had said. His eyes were crinkled at the corners, more than the average person, and his mouth agape. The sun made the shadows cast over his face perfectly enough to light up his long eyelashes were on display over his sharp cheekbones. When he showed Louis the picture, he complimented Harry on capturing the photo. Harry wanted to explain how it was purely the beauty of subject and he just got a lucky shot.

After taking a deep breath, Harry finally pressed call and brought the phone to his ear. Every ring that sounded made Harry’s chest tighten. On the fifth ring he was sent to voicemail.

“It’s Louis. You can leave a message, or text me if you actually want a reply.” _*Beep*._

He was about to hang up, but instead he decided that maybe this was easier. He didn’t have to worry about how Louis would respond or him hanging up out of anger, he could just speak freely. Besides, based on his voicemail, he wouldn’t listen to it anyway.

“Hey Lou. I’m at the bonfire right now, but I snuck off with Zayn and Niall so if I don’t make much sense you can blame the cookies. I just broke up with Gillian, which I meant to tell you before we started yelling at each other. I know you probably hate me right now, but I want you to know I still love you. As a friend, sure, but I think I might-” he stopped himself because he hadn’t thought through what he was going to say this wasn’t the way he should be confessing it, but his tongue kept moving anyway.

“I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you.

“After that night on the roof I couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss, but when you never brought it up, I assumed you forgot. Or maybe didn’t want to remember.”

Harry turned around to rest one arm across the bannister and lean his body weight against it. He wasn’t sure of the words coming out of his mouth because they were just all of his thoughts spilling out and he couldn’t stop himself once he got going.

“When you said that night meant nothing to you, that hurt. It really fucking hurt because it meant a whole lot to me. But I still love you and right now I think that might be killing me because you don’t even care enough to answer your goddamn phone.”

Harry scrunched his eyes together tightly and looked down, trying to compose himself.

_*Beep* Message saved. Thank you for your call._

The next morning was awkward, to say the least. Niall was still snoring away in his bunk, but the other three moved idly around each other as they got ready for rehearsal. The most interaction they had was when Zayn suggested Harry try waking Niall up with a pillow to the back of his head. Instead he just groaned and rolled over to face the wall, pulling the blanket up over his head. They tried to mute their laughter and Harry looked at Louis to see if he was showing any signs of amusement, but he was already leaving for the showers with his toiletries bag in hand.

After Niall went off to bed the night before, Harry and Zayn stayed up late to talk. This was always a habit for them, pondering life’s biggest questions and stressing over every teenager’s seemingly biggest problems. When they were too sleepy to conceal their honesty and were hardly able to bear keeping their eyes open another second. Zayn was so easy to talk to, especially since they weren’t attached at the hip all the time. If either needed truthful, unbiased advice, the other was the perfect choice to go to.

In this case, he wanted to make sure Zayn was okay after what happened with Liam in the mess hall. When he assured him they would work it out, Harry wasn’t certain if he believed him. Not that they weren’t capable of sorting out their problems. That is, as long as Liam could get past his inability to communicate his feelings, and Zayn would stop letting him get away with being closed off. But that was up to them.

Having rehearsal first thing in the morning had its pros and cons. The cons were more obvious at first. It was early and everyone was groggy and tired and sore from the extensive activity from the day before.

The morning was absolutely beautiful outside with perfectly clear skies and crisp fresh air. The birds chirped as they flew between the trees and the nature scent was especially bracing at this hour. Not that anyone could enjoy it when they had to spend the first three hours of the day indoors. If it wasn’t for music flying off stands in the wind, they would’ve been able to rehearse outside.

The pros were discovered later when it was realized that the rest of the day was mostly free time. Michelle arrived at the theatre near the end of the last song to let everyone know that the activities building would be open to those who were interested. She would be taking a group to the pier for fishing and said that canoes were available to take out on the lake as well. None of it sounded appealing to Harry, who felt more like wallowing in his own self-pity.

The only conclusion for something to do that he could come up with, besides curling up in his bunk away from everyone else, was to take a walk down to the lake. He put on swim shorts, even though he didn’t really plan on swimming, and his baggy Pink Floyd t-shirt. He already was in that lake once, without proper swimwear, so that was more than enough for the weekend.

On his way down, he ran into Niall and Mason who were headed the same way. Mason was armed with his video camera, ready to get more footage for his video. Most of the time he managed to record secretly, which was great for getting candid moments, but not so much when no one but him was sure what would be included in his band trip recap.

Along the small patch of sand that could technically be called a beach, a few others were already lounging on towels. Amy and Gillian were sitting with Casey and sun tanning in a row. Sat on the end closest to Gillian, Liam and Louis had a deck of cards between them as they played a game of Thirty-One.

“Where’s Zayn?” Niall asked Liam as he spread out his own towel next to Amy’s. She smiled and sat up when she realized his presence.

“He’s with Chris. I think they went fishing.” Liam replied, just as he discarded to end his turn. “I knock.”

“What do you mean you knock? You only went twice!” Louis exclaimed.

“What can I say? I dealt myself a good hand.”

“Well you’ve been dealing me shit hands every round so the only conclusion I can draw is that you’re cheating.” Louis laid down a jack of hearts, a seven of hearts, and a two of spades before slouching in defeat. “Seventeen.”

“Or you’re just shit at cards.” Liam fanned out his jack, queen, and king of diamonds with a grin. “Thirty.”

“Fuck off. I’m dealing next round.” Louis declared as his collected the cards while Liam cackled.

When Harry sat next to Liam, Louis didn’t bother to acknowledge his arrival, never mind offering to deal him in. Harry wasn’t much better at the game anyway. He lost a bunch of money at a party once after Liam first taught him to play. He was fine in the practice rounds, but the pressure must’ve got to him because he left that table empty handed.

Being left out of the game wasn’t really what he was worried about. He didn’t like being on bad terms with Louis. They hadn’t said a word to each other since the bonfire and Harry hated it. The sooner they could get past this, the better. Harry just didn’t know how to proceed after the whole “I think I’m in love with my best friend” revelation.

All that did was remind him of the voicemail he left the night before. Thank God Louis left his phone in Harry’s room so at least he could delete it before Louis heard it. The task wouldn’t be too hard, he knew the code to get into Louis’ phone: 2323. Very secure.

“It’s too hot out. We should cool off in the water,” Sarah suggested, pushing back her short brunette hair with her sunglasses

“I’m up for it,” Gillian replied, quick to sit up as well. The others agreed and began stripping down to just their swimsuits. Harry didn’t move as this happened since he still wasn’t in the mood to go in the water. He noticed Louis wasn’t getting up either, but he was still refusing to make eye contact. Instead, he pretended to be interested in whatever was going on across the lake with one arm resting on his knee and his hands lazily shuffling the cards.

“I think I’ll just hang back,” Louis said as the others started walking off.

“You sure? What about you, Harry?” asked Amy. She used one hand to block the sun from her eyes.

“I’m good staying here.”

Only then was when Louis noticed that Harry wasn’t leaving with the rest of them. “Actually, maybe I will join you,” Louis decided.

Great, Harry thought, Louis couldn’t even stand to be left alone with him.

The rest of them were already in the water, slowly walking in and shivering at how cold it was. Harry looked away as Louis pulled off his shirt and started jogging to catch up. He only took a few steps across the sand before he let out a yelp and doubled over in pain, grabbing onto his foot.

When Harry heard the scream, his head shot up and he instantly sprinted towards Louis without a second thought. Kneeling down next to him, his face was riddled with concern. A crease between his eyes and corners of his mouth pointed down.

“What happened? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, leave me alone,” Louis whined just as he did yesterday.

Harry reached out to try to pry Louis’ hand away from where he was covering his foot to see what the injury was. A small amount of blood was spilling through his fingers and it didn’t take long to spot the shiny green piece of broken glass in the sand next to him.

“Don’t touch me. I said I’m fine.” Louis snapped. Harry promptly pulled his hand away and let out a breath.

“Look, I get that you’re mad at me, but don’t suffer with a bleeding foot because of it. Here…” He pulled his shirt over his head and wrapped it around the bottom of Louis’ foot and heel. Louis watched him do it without saying anything, but remained stiff.

The cut wasn’t too bad, nothing more than some gauze and antibacterial ointment could fix. But that still required a trip to the first aid shed since that’s where all the medical supplies were kept.

“Do you think you can walk?” Harry asked, already holding on to one arm to help him stand up.

“It’s a cut, not a broken bone.”

Harry rolled his eyes and pulled Louis into a standing position. He swung Louis’ right arm over his shoulder so he could help him walk. The shed was just at the other end of the beach. Harry figured he could handle this himself without the help of Miss Hammond or Michelle. He was also doing them a favour by saving the accident report forms, as long as they didn’t find out.

They trekked through the rest of the sand with neither saying a word. Harry watched their footing as Louis limped to make sure he didn’t cause them to trip. Sand was stuck to his legs from the fall and he was squinting his eyes a bit with each step, not wanting to admit that he was in pain and very much needed Harry’s help.

Being stubborn was always a prominent quality Louis held. That, and the ability to hold a grudge until the day he died. Anyone else would blame his pride or his ego, but Harry knew it was an all an act. With Gillian, their feud was purely entertainment. Both for Louis, and their friends, that he also considered his audience.

To get inside the shed, there were two short steps and a doorknob that looked to have been bought right from a hardware store and put on by someone who wasn’t very handy with a screwdriver. The lock was rusted over and must have been broken for years.

Through the door, the tiny shack was like a trap for splinters, which seemed ironic since this was meant to treat incidents like that. The walls were made of a single layer of two-by-fours and roof was full of patches so rain couldn’t get through the holes. In the corner were a few shelves stocked with medical supplies that were sealed in plastic baggies. Along one wall was a wooden table for the ‘patient’ to sit on with a metal stool tucked underneath.

“Sit down,” Harry instructed as he pulled out the stool for himself and searched for rubbing alcohol and cotton balls. Louis did as told and took it upon himself to remove the t-shirt that was now ruined because of the blood. The stain made Louis feel worse than the cut did. He knew that was one of Harry’s favourite shirts.

The bleeding had mostly stopped by now, but the cut still stung. It ran along just under his big toe to the centre of the bottom of his foot. Thankfully, it wasn’t too deep. That might’ve warranted a much longer trip to the emergency room. Needles were painful enough, he didn’t need something to be threaded through his skin.

Louis straightened his leg out so Harry could take a look at the injury. He pulled a cotton ball out of the bag and poured a bit of rubbing alcohol before dabbing it on the skin.

“Ahh! That burns!” Louis yelped and threw his head back, bunching one hand into the side of his shorts.

“Of course it burns. Didn’t your mum ever clean up a cut for you when you were little?”

“It’s been a few years since I went crying home to my mum because of a few scrapes on the football field.”

“A few years or _a_ year?” Harry smirked.

“Oh, shut up,” Louis grumbled and laid back on the table, rubbing his eyes to distract from the pain and letting one leg hang off the side. “I’m still mad at you, you know.”

“That’s fair.”

“Don’t you care?”

“Of course I do.”

“You’re not going to try to fight with me again?”

“Do you really want to fight when you have the cut and I’m holding the bottle of rubbing alcohol?” Harry raised his head slightly to glance at him.

“Point taken.”

When the cut seemed fairly clean, Harry turned to find the ointment as well as gauze and medical tape. This was a bit more than a couple bandages could handle.

To pass time, Louis reached over to a box of latex gloves and pulled out one to blow up like a balloon. It looked kind of like a Mickey Mouse hand, he thought, as he tied it up.

“Can you still not tie balloons?” Louis asked to break the silence.

“Haven’t tried since that party we threw for your mum.” Harry smiled fondly at the memory.

“Oh, yeah,” Louis laughed to himself. “I remember that. I told mum and the girls to go out to see a film so we could surprise her for her birthday. We spent that whole day cooking dinner and trying to decorate the living room with streamers and a ‘happy birthday’ sign.”

“Don’t forget that birthday cake. I can’t believe we thought we could make red velvet cake ourselves. I don’t think either of us had baked anything in our lives before that.”

“Come on, our cooking wasn’t that bad. Mum seemed to like the homemade macaroni and cheese,” Louis defended.

Harry glanced up at him to scoff. “That’s because she didn’t see how burnt the bottom was when you tried to put it in the oven. And she never did get to try the cake we made.”

They were both laughing now just thinking about that day. The cake didn’t even make it in the oven and they ended up with clothes covered in red food colouring and an icing food fight that resulted in one of Louis’ sisters pointing out that Harry still had some in his hair later that day. They had to go to the store to buy a replacement cake last minute, and rushed home to clean up before the family’s return. Louis’ mum loved it nonetheless.

Trying to blow up balloons also proved difficult that day since Harry couldn’t figure out how to tie the ends and Louis was laughing too hard over his struggle to get any air in them.

“I bet you still can’t tie them.” Louis summarized, calming down and trying to remember that he was supposed to be mad, not happily reminiscing.

“I bet you’re right.”

Louis sighed as he hit the glove balloon towards Harry, but it fell right to the floor without even touching him.

“Are you almost finished?”

“I just have to bandage it up.”

With his eyes wandering, Louis found himself looking down at Harry’s chest. His skin was bright red with a line on his hip near the waistband of his swim shorts where it turned pale.

“You have a sunburn,” Louis observed and sat up to take a closer look.

“That, I do,” replied Harry, pliantly.

On the same shelf with the box of gloves, Louis found a small bottle of aloe vera gel. Harry was just finishing up with the tape when Louis leaned forward and squeezed some of the green gel onto his fingertips.

“Come here,” Louis said, but was already scooting closer to Harry.

He touched his skin carefully and spread it over his shoulders first, keeping focused on his own hands. Harry sat up straight without a word, looking between Louis’ eyes and where he was touching him. The gel was cold but Louis’ fingers felt like fire against his skin.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked softly.

His question went unanswered when Louis instead decided to say, “I told you that you should’ve worn a shirt yesterday.”

“My shirt was soaking wet. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Suffer,” Louis replied bluntly. Harry barked out a laugh, but immediately covered his mouth after it came out.

A fond smile creeped onto Louis face at the act, but he sucked his cheeks in to force it away. He was mad at Harry. Just yesterday, Harry was mocking his choices and accusing him of being a hypocrite. They weren’t on well enough terms to joke around quite yet.

Except Harry’s skin felt so warm, and it wasn’t just because of the burn. He was always warm, but in a cuddly sort of way. Like a walking fuzzy sweater. Perfect for snuggling up with near a fire on a snowy day. Or just any day, really.

His head was quite close to him as well. On his shoulder, Louis could feel a small stream of air every time Harry exhaled through his nose. Their bodies were no more than a few inches from each other and they were both looking down at Harry’s chest as Louis’ fingers dragged lightly across it.

“Sorry about your shirt, by the way,” Louis spoke sincerely. “I’ll buy you a new one.”

“’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“I want to. Really.”

Harry didn’t say anything else after that. He couldn’t care less about the shirt at that point. Not when Louis was facing him directly with legs hanging off the table, one on either side of Harry’s knees. In one movement, he could pull him right onto his lap and connect their lips in a sweet and eager kiss.

So that’s exactly what his did, but slower and with much more care. He cupped one hand over Louis’ narrow cheek and guided him closer as the tension pulsated between them. Harry noticed the beginnings of stubble along his chin and payed close attention to those long eyelashes that fanned out when he closed his eyes.

“Can I kiss you?” Harry asked when their lips were already brushing against each other.

Instead of replying or even so much as nodding, Louis took it upon himself to press their lips together. He was too impatient for teasing.

Harry brought his other hand to rest on the side of Louis’ thigh and Louis wrapped both arms around Harry’s neck before dropping one to glide his fingers down his chest. Louis creased his eyes together at the feeling of finally being able to kiss him again. He wanted nothing more than to pull him closer into the embrace until their chests were aligned.

Harry’s lips were softer than before and the movements were slower. This time, there was no tinge of liquor between their mouths or actions guided by the effects of alcohol. The sobriety was far too prominent in Louis’ thoughts because this time, there was nothing influencing either of them besides their own minds and their own feelings.

That was the thought that made Louis pull away because it was suddenly too much to handle. He always knew he liked Harry, but there were so many reasons they couldn’t do this. One was just outside that door swimming with her friends. Another was back home, hoping to soon be able to call Louis his boyfriend.

“I just want us to be okay,” Harry whispered when their faces were still so close they could feel each other’s breath. The words came out like a plead and made what Louis had to do so much harder.

“I’m sorry,” Louis said, putting more distance between them. Harry’s hand was still on his thigh and Louis dropped his own arm to Harry’s waist. He didn’t want to stop feeling him. “I can’t do this again. You’re with Gillian and-”

“I broke up with Gillian.”

“And I’m with Sam.” Louis finished and Harry took a sharp breath through his nose from hearing the words.

Harry looked down and slowly pulled his hand away. The spot where it was still felt warm from his touch. Louis found himself already missing the contact.

“I just can’t.” Louis said again, quieter this time.

Harry closed his eyes tightly. He started nodding and gulped before he spoke, “No, I get it. It’s okay.”

But every part of his body language was screaming that it wasn’t okay. His tightened jaw, his diverting eyes, his guarded posture. With a few short words, Louis ruined everything that should’ve been able to develop between them. He wanted so badly for this to be able to happen- whatever it was.

There were so many reasons why it shouldn’t work. Why it _couldn’t_ work. Twelve years of friendship couldn’t transform into something more in just a moment like that. Louis couldn’t wrap his mind around it when Harry was right in front of him looking like he just had his heart broken.

“I’m so sorry. Should we talk about this?”

“No, I uh- I think we should just go. Lunch should be soon, anyway.”

Harry scratched the back of his head and looked around the room to figure out how to proceed. He decided to tidy up the medical supplies and reached to open the door and let some fresh air in.

The awkward and uneasy feeling that still hung heavy in the room would’ve been easier for them to escape, if only the doorknob hadn’t come off in Harry’s hand as soon as he twisted it. He stared at it in disbelief for a moment before holding it up to show Louis. Nothing could be more inconvenient at that moment.

Louis’ eyes widened at the sight and his jaw fell slightly open. “I don’t think it’s supposed to do that.”


	5. Harmony

Laying down on the wooden table, Louis was growing annoyed with Harry’s relentless banging on the door and repeated yelling of the word “help!” Not even ten minutes had past, but they felt like they’d been stranded for hours. With everyone at the lake, it wasn’t a surprise that no one could hear them.

“For god’s sake, Harry, it’s not working,” Louis groaned, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. Harry stopped the banging and stared Louis down from where he was sitting with his back against the door.

“What else do you want me to do, break the door down?”

“Didn’t you bring your phone? Can’t you call someone?”

“No, actually. I didn’t think to grab it when I was busy trying to stop your foot from bleeding everywhere. But I’m sure you have yours, right?” Louis opened his mouth to speak, but Harry wasn’t finished, “Oh, right. You left it in my room because you turned our alarm off so we had to rush out the door, almost making us miss the bus.”

“You have got to be joking. Are you actually bringing that up right now?” Louis sat up and raised his voice, but not enough to be yelling. “Get over it. We made it here, didn’t we?”

“’Here’ as in the camp or ‘here’ as in our current situation? Because I’m not sure I wanted to be involved in either.” Harry closed his eyes and hit his head lightly against the wood in exasperation.

“Ditto.”

There was a beat of silence before Louis spoke again. With a tilted head and narrow eyes, he asked, “Is this about Sam?”

“Why would this be about him? It’s not like he locked us in a shed.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Actually, I don’t. Why don’t you tell me?” Harry looked up and they met in an intense gaze.

Nothing about the situation was right. This wasn’t them. This wasn’t how their friendship worked. They didn’t fight or hide things from each other. Or maybe they did and everything that was bottled up over 12 years was finally getting let out now. Right when they were at a crossroads as to where they stood with each other.

“I don’t like fighting with you.” Louis finally said, softening his expression. Harry almost did the same before they were startled by a knocking at the door.

Their eyes met in shock. Harry called out, “Hello?”

“Harry? Louis? Is that you guys?” Mason’s voice sounded on the other side. He kneeled down and looked through the hole where the doorknob used to be.

“Mason! Thank God!” Harry exclaimed.

Louis crouched next to him even though he couldn’t see. “Can you get Michelle or Hammond? The doorknob broke off and we’re trapped.”

“Yeah, just hold on. I’ll be right back!” he disappeared from sight and his voice faded as he ran away.

Louis turned around to sit next to Harry, flinching from the pain of accidentally putting pressure on his cut. They sat in uncomfortable silence, neither wanting to be there and both driving themselves crazy to know what the other was thinking.

“I don’t want to fight with you either,” Harry said quietly, not looking in his direction. “Just give me some time to sort my own shit out.”

Louis nodded, but he wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. He just wanted to be done with the fighting and confusion. He wanted his best friend back, the way they used to be. That was the easiest way.

“Hey,” Louis nudged him by only slightly moving his arm. They were already sitting with their shoulders touching. “Did you actually break up with Gillian?”

Harry squinted his eyes and actually laughed at the change of topic. “Yeah, I did.”

Louis sighed and joined in on the laughter.

“Fucking finally.”

Miss Hammond was the first to respond to Mason’s call of distress. Her only solution to get them out was to break the hinges off of the door since the knob was broken beyond repair. The back of a hammer was all that was needed to get the job done. Harry and Louis had created quite the scene at this point. When the door came falling to the ground, they were greeted by at least ten of their classmates, Niall and Mason standing at the front to aid Miss Hammond- and so Mason could get the rescue on video.

At the sight of Louis’ bandaged up foot, Miss Hammond was immediately bombarding them with questions about what happened and why they didn’t let her know. Louis, always able to talk himself out of anything, explained that he was fine and it wasn’t a big deal. According to her, it was a big enough deal to have to fill out an accident report.

Every year, at least one accident report had to be filled out during a band trip. Last winter, Niall slipped on an ice patch trying to run back to the bus through the freezing cold. He returned home with a sprained wrist that time. On their first trip, someone rear-ended Hammond’s car when there wasn’t enough room for everyone on the bus so she had Amy and Gillian with her. No one was hurt, but she couldn’t exactly get away with not reporting a car accident.

When the group dispersed, Louis insisted on going back to the room by himself. He was still limping, but wanted no help to walk. His only request was a bit of peace, and for someone to bring him back a sandwich from lunch.

On the way to the mess hall, the other passed by Liam who was kicking a football around on the empty field

“You missed quite the event,” Niall called out to Liam when the three of them stopped near the sidelines.

“Yeah, Harry and Louis got trapped in the first aid shed. They could’ve died!” Mason stressed.

Niall elbowed him in the ribs. “No they couldn’t have. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“I mean, if it was a few days, they would’ve starved…”

“Good thing it was only 15 minutes then,” Harry said to humour Mason’s comment.

“Well, then, sorry I missed it. Harry, can I interest you in a kick around?”

“We were just about to go to lunch.” Harry pointed to the mess hall behind him with his thumb.

“It’ll be quick. Please?” Liam seemed eager as he softly kicked the ball in Harry’s direction so it rolled right up to his feet. Harry nodded and told the others he’d meet them inside before jogging infield.

“You okay, man?” Harry asked as they began dribbling the ball back and forth at a light pace.

Liam looked around them, almost like he was searching for something, then passed the ball back. “Has Zayn said anything to you about me?”

Harry hesitated to answer. He knew Zayn wouldn’t want him telling Liam about all their conversations. That wasn’t his information to disclose.

“Why do you ask?” He said instead.

“He missed breakfast then wouldn’t talk to me at all before or after rehearsal. I asked him what was wrong and he just said “it’s not like you would understand, anyway.” Like, what the hell am I supposed to do with that?” Liam spoke breathlessly and kicked the ball right into the net from Harry’s pass.

“Maybe you should take him aside and try to talk to him? You know, ensure him that you’re there to listen. And let him know how you feel when you talk, as well.”

Liam stopped moving and looked at him like he just kicked a puppy. “What do you mean? I’m fine, I just want to make sure _he’s_ okay.”

“You have to admit that you tend to be a bit reserved when it comes to your feelings,” Harry pushed the fact.

“I do not. I can be open if I wanted to.” He folded his arms together tightly under his armpits.

“Then do it. Miscommunication is the number one cause of fights.”

“That’s a fact, is it?”

“Just trust me on that one.”

Liam dropped his arms to his side and Harry walked closer to him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“So, what, you think I should just open up to him and everything will be fine?”

“Maybe not that directly, but it will help. I think now’s your chance to put it to the test.”

Harry nodded forward to where Zayn was approaching them. He was dressed in black jeans and a thin black windbreaker, appropriate for the incoming overcast. Zayn’s wardrobe was like a personal mood ring. The more layers or the darker the colours, the worse he was feeling.

“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Harry looked between them and offered them a tight-lipped smile before disappearing into the building for lunch.

Zayn stood in front of Liam, trying to read his face since he knew his mouth wouldn’t express his emotions. Liam’s eyebrows were pulled together and his hands were now stuffed in the pockets of his joggers. He was attempting to make eye contact with Zayn, but he couldn’t hold the gaze for longer than a few second intervals.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Zayn told him.

“What?”

“Right at this moment, what are you thinking?”

Liam took a long breath and exhaled even slower. “I’m thinking that you’re mad at me for a reason I’m clearly oblivious to.”

“Both of those things are true.”

Zayn crossed his arms, but kept his eyes sharp and his posture steady.

“Care to enlighten me as to what I did to make you mad?” He was speaking too passively and Zayn was getting even more frustrated.

“Why didn’t you want to be my roommate?”

“I thought we talked about this? We agreed that-”

“Are you ashamed of me?”

A beat of silence swung between them. Zayn’s eyebrows arched out of hurt. Liam’s mouth fell agape and his mind instantly cleared.

“How could you even think that?” Liam asked softly. He stepped closer to place a comforting hand on Zayn’s hip, but Zayn was quick to slap it away.

“Don’t pull that shit with me. For the last few weeks you’ve been ignoring me except for when you want to fuck. I’m not putting up with that, Liam, I need you to talk to me!” He broke into yelling and poked his pointer finger into Liam’s chest.

“What makes you think I’m ignoring you? We’re together every second of the day, I could barely ignore you if I tried.”

“Oh, I’m glad to know that I’m such a burden to you.”

“I didn’t mean it like that and you know it.”

“Then what is it?” Zayn softened his voice out of desperation. “Tell me what’s wrong and we’ll fix this. I can’t read your mind.”

For the second attempt at pulling him closer, Zayn let Liam wrap his arms around his waist. He did the same in return, linking his fingers together to rest on the small of Liam’s back.

“You want to know what’s wrong? I’m getting too used to us being _that_ couple. The one that becomes a ‘we’ instead of two ‘I’s’. It’s not that I think we need space or that I’m getting bored, I just don’t want our relationship to stop us from being our own person. We’re still two individuals. Does that make sense?”

Zayn was glowing when he nodded. He’d been waiting months to hear Liam say something that direct. He felt a reassurance flush over him because Liam really did care. Well, he knew he cared, he’d just never been so verbal about it.

Through his smile, Zayn leaned forward and kissed him firmly on the lips. Liam had no problem returning the gesture.

“I’m glad you said that and I agree completely. I also think we should talk about it more when we get back.”

“I think that sounds great,” Liam beamed.

Zayn kissed him again, softer this time. Liam raised his arms to wrap them around his neck while muttering “I love you,” against his lips.

“Love you too,” Zayn replied, just as easily.

 

Louis stood above his suitcase, staring down at the pile of dirty clothes hanging over the sides. There was nothing left that was neatly- or even remotely- folded, and half of it was still damp from the first day’s accidental swim. Hanging them up would’ve been the smarter option, but his mind was too high in the clouds lately to focus on anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Even during rehearsal he missed a few ques.

Ever since this morning, Louis felt like he was back to square one. After the kiss on the roof, that was all he could think about. How soft and gentle Harry’s lips felt against his. In those few seconds, every worry about the future or consequence that may arise escaped him. He felt weightless and like this was the big climax and the rest of his life was just the rising action. He wasn’t prepared for that moment to only be part of the exposition.

That was when he started talking to Sam again. He hoped that maybe if he had a new romantic interest in his life, he would get over whatever teenage hormones were driving him towards his best friend. But even when he was with Sam, all his could think about was that boy from down the road that he grew up with. The thoughts were driving him crazy, but ignoring them made it even worse.

And just when that candle of feelings was starting to fade, a match came along to reignite it inside that shed. He wondered if it would ever burn out.

But right now, he needed to get dressed.

“I didn’t bring enough clothes,” Louis huffed, collapsing onto Harry’s empty bed.

“You would’ve if you didn’t insist on changing three times a day,” Niall said as he checked his hair in the mirror. He hadn’t bothered to style it, but didn’t want to look like he hadn’t bothered to put any effort in at all.

They were getting ready for another bonfire, this time to roast hotdogs for dinner, and were already running late. Niall dropped by about an hour ago to take a nap and Louis had no idea the campfire was even happening. When Niall woke up, it was a scramble for them to get out the door.

“It’s not my fault I have to keep changing.”

“Whose fault is it then?”

“The lake’s. And the sun’s- it’s too hot for jeans.”

“Of course, blame nature. Do you need to borrow a shirt?”

“If you would be so kind,” Louis spoke chivalrously.

Niall bent down to reach his suitcase under the mirror and check if he had anything that would work for Louis. In the bottom of it was a grey wool sweater that he packed more for a just-in-case scenario. He tossed it in Louis’ direction and let the lid of his bag fall closed.

“Is this all you have?” Louis examined the material.

“Is it not up to your standards, princess?” Niall retorted.

“It’ll do,” Louis sighed dramatically and pulled it over his head. The ‘thank you’ was implied. The fabric was itchy against his skin, but tolerable as long as it would keep him warm. “Before we go, can I ask your advice about something?”

“Now? I mean, yeah. Is it serious? Because I’m here if you need, but Harry is normally better with this stuff. I can get him if you want.” Niall pointed a thumb at the door.

“No- God, no,” Louis laughed humourlessly to himself, “I want to ask you.”

Niall nodded slowly at sat across from him on Zayn’s bed. Outside the window they could hear laughing and chatter from their classmates as the sun was just beginning to set.

“To get it out of the way, I want you to know that I’m gay.”

“Is that what you need advice on? Because that’s all fine and good, but I’m not the guy to ask about that.”

Louis let out a real laugh this time. Sharing feelings was not something him and Niall ever did, so the conversation starting out awkward was to be expected. Their friendship was based more on relentless picking on each other and a shared love of football. The most fraternal bond he had with anyone.

“Not quite. It’s more of a relationship thing.”

“Right. Because I have a great track record with relationships.”

“Look, if you don’t want to help me I’ll go find Zayn or Liam.” Louis started to get up.

“No, I’ll help! This is good, you know? Talking about our problems and connecting.” He gestured between them. “It’s healthy to get it all out.”

Louis raised an eyebrow. “Have you quite finished? It’s not _our_ relationship I’m concerned about.”

“Alright, on with it then.” Niall said exasperatedly.

“Okay, so there’s this guy back home that I’ve been seeing for a while and everything seemed to be going great. But there’s also this other guy that I’ve been friends with that I sort of caught feelings for. Then we kissed and now I’m not sure what to do because I technically already have a boyfriend, but I also like the other guy.”

Niall stared at him like he was expecting to hear more. When a moment passed, he offered a flattened palm. “That’s it? Mate, it’s not that hard. If you’re dating someone, but can still develop feelings for someone else, then the first person probably wasn’t meant for you anyway.”

“But it’s not that simple!” Louis stood up in frustration and paced the room. “We’ve been friends practically our whole lives. We can’t just start seeing each other all of the sudden. I don’t even know if he feels the same.”

“Hold on, do I know this second guy? Is it Har-”

“Focus, Niall. That’s not important.”

Niall sat back against the bedframe, looking defeated as he exhaled.

“I still say you have to break up with the first one. Being friends first is sometimes the best way to start a relationship. You already know each other so well right from the beginning. It’s like learning to ride a bike, but you skipped the training wheels.”

“Nice analogy, but I’m yet to be convinced. What if we break-up? What happens then?”

“What if you get married and want to start a family together?”

“That’s planning a little too far ahead, don’t you think?”

“I’m just saying, don’t always think of the worst case scenario. You’re allowed to be optimistic once in a while.”

Louis slumped against the wall between the two sets of bunk beds. He didn’t know whether or not he wanted Niall to be right. So many worries and questions still swirled around his head that wanted to hold him back. What if Harry didn’t feel as strongly as he did? Did they even want to date? Would they still be friends if they broke up? Could his feelings actually be growing to love, or was he only driven by lust? What would their friends and family think?

That last question was for more important to him than he’d like to admit. All his life he was focused on what others thought of him, as unhealthy as that probably was. From whether he could make them laugh to what they thought of him for initially wanting to play the flute in band. _It wasn’t a_ girly _instrument,_ he tried to tell himself at the time, _how could an instrument be considered girly, anyway?_

When it came to Harry, Louis wasn’t even sure what he thought people would think of him. That he was gay? That was true and not something he was too concerned with hiding much longer. That he was dating his best friend? But doesn’t everyone want the person they’re dating to eventually also be their best friend?

The more he weaved through problems that didn’t exist, the more he worried that there was something he was missing. Some burning fact that proved the relationship wouldn’t work. He hadn’t found it yet, but he would. Whether it came to him in his sleep on in the shower or in the middle of his exams at school, he’d find it.

One thing Louis did know for sure was that none of his worries involved Sam.

“Is that all, then? Should we head down to the bonfire?”

Niall rose to his feet which shook Louis away from his thoughts and brought him back to the present. He didn’t even realize he was looking out the window. The trees were only silhouettes and the sky faded from blue to pink to orange.

“Yeah, we should. And thanks.”

“Anytime. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. I could probably eat at least six hotdogs.”

“Not even _you_ could eat six hotdogs.”

“Oh yeah? You wanna bet?”

As it turned out, Niall really could eat six hotdogs. Actually, he could eat seven no problem, beating Liam by two. Their competition started after they each went back for thirds and Liam lost by a landslide. He ended up having to excuse himself early so he could go back to his room and sleep it off before his stomach exploded.

Most of the band kids were opting to turn in early that night. They were nearing the end of the trip and a slight sleep deprivation was starting to catch up with them. Zayn walked Liam to his room first before going back to his own. Harry was second to go with no excuse except that he was tired. Louis got caught up in a game of Thirty-One with Mason, Casey, and Sarah so he stayed back a bit longer. Earlier on, Niall disappeared with Amy, which was conveniently just after Chris left.

Midnight rolled around a few hours later and Miss Hammond announced that it was time for everyone to shut it down. The four of them were the only ones left around the fire, Mason taking the lead in Thirty-One with Sarah in close second. They promised to continue the next chance they got, but they were leaving camp after last rehearsal the next morning. After that, there was only one day left until final competition. The pressure was just starting to build up.

When Louis got back to his room, all of the lights were out except the phone screen that lit up Harry’s face. Zayn’s deep-sleep breathing from the other side was the only noise that filled the space. Louis tried to be as quiet as possible while he took off his shoes and changed into sweats to wear to bed.

“Is that you, Louis?” Harry whispered and clicked off his phone.

“Well, it’s not the boogie man. Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“Just had some trouble, I guess” he spoke over a yawn.

Louis climbed the wooden steps to get to his bunk. They creaked as he got closer to the top. He knew he’d be sleeping as soon as his head hit the pillow.

“Good night,” Louis whispered to the room. Harry didn’t hear it. He was already passed out from exhaustion.

 

In rehearsal that morning, the band was livelier than they had been during the whole trip.  As they set up, the room was filled with a mixture of laughter, squawking instruments, and chairs scraping on the floor between sections. Miss Hammond hadn’t arrived from breakfast yet, so they started tuning without her.

Louis stood at the back of the room, tuning the timpani like he had gotten used to doing every day. Brandon was sitting at the piano, playing each note so he could tune by ear.

“I think it’s still a little sharp,” Brandon commented. He didn’t know why Brandon didn’t just tune them himself. He had perfect pitch, but insisted Louis do it so he could learn. That was the only part of their odd friendship that wasn’t one sided.

Chris was one of the last of the students to enter the room and he slammed the door open as he did so. His face was red and he was practically fuming as he stomped through the small theatre towards the stage. Pushing his way through the middle section, he pulled an oblivious Niall to his feet by the collar of his shirt. His trumpet was still in his hands.

“What the hell are you doing with Amy?” he demanded. Liam and Harry were quick to rise from their seats and attempt to break up the impending fight. Liam grabbed onto Chris’ shoulders to stop him from getting too physical, and Harry stepped between them.

“Hold on now-” Harry started, but Chris wasn’t interested in hearing it.

“I saw you guys out by the basketball court last night. You were late coming back so Hammond asked me to go looking for you. I didn’t expect you to be making out with my girlfriend!” He yelled, traces of spit getting onto Niall’s face.

“I’m not your girlfriend!” Amy turned around in her seat, her short hair spinning with her, “And I’m not his girlfriend either.”

“There’s a basketball court here?” Brandon whispered in Louis’ ear, but Louis shushed him. He wasn’t one for physical confrontation himself, but he was becoming invested in the scene playing out in front of him.

“Bullshit. I thought we were friends, man,” he looked back at Niall, “You don’t hook up with your friend’s ex.”

In another act of anger, Chris shoved Niall back into his chair so hard he knocked over three stands. Zayn jumped up and tried to catch him with the help of Harry. Niall landed across the row of chairs, limbs flailing until he caught his balance. If they were back home, Louis would write three more ticks on the whiteboard for Niall dropping his music. After the whole situation was over, of course.

“Relax, Chris. I don’t know what you think you saw, but she’s not lying!” Niall stood back up while Liam pulled Chris a few feet back. The last thing anyone wanted was for fists to start swinging.

“Then why have you been spending so much time together? The double date with Harry and Gillian? Sneaking off with him whatever chance you could?”

“He has a good point,” Louis added, completely aware he was overstepping his bounds. He was met by quite a few glares from around the room in response.

“We’re just good friends,” Amy stressed, giving in to the fact that she had to become part of the drama. She was actually the indirect cause of it all. “We hang out sometimes. We go on group outings. So what? A guy and a girl can be just friends. Besides, I’m with Casey.”

Quiet gasps could be heard around the room. Louis felt like the plot to an intense soap opera was unfolding in front of him. He told Brandon to move over and sat with him on the piano bench, both still intently focused on what they were witnessing.

“I thought you wanted to wait to tell people?” Casey asked with wide eyes and flushed cheeks.

“Who cares at this point? We’re dating and now you all know.” Amy walked over to Casey and led her to her feet so they could meet in a quick kiss. She did it for the show, but you could sense the sincerity in the contact just from watching it happen. Who was to say how long they’d been together, but they did an awfully good job at hiding it.

Chris was dumfounded. He felt like an idiot for acting out over a relationship that was over. Rather, one he needed to continue working to get over. His suspicions were causing him to get ahead of himself and he was driving himself crazy.

“Happy now? Can we all just calm down until Hammond gets here?” Niall addressed the room, but was mostly speaking to Chris.

“Yeah, we should get that cleaned up,” Chris motioned towards the pile of scattered music on the ground, “And I’m sorry for being an arse. I just hated the idea of one of my friends going behind my back like that.”

“C’mon, I wouldn’t do that to you,” Niall patted his shoulder with a reassuring smile.

“So we’re cool?”

“We’re cool.”

They grabbed hands and pulled each other into a bro-hug while the class took a second to recover and appreciate the satisfying conclusion. Amy watched them with one hand on her hip.

“Don’t you have something you want to say to me?”

Chris turned to her with an apologetic gaze. “Yeah, I’m sorry too. And if Casey is who makes you happy, then I’m happy for you.” Amy didn’t say anything in response, but the gratitude was evident in her smile.

As luck would have it, that’s when Miss Hammond finally arrived. She had her folder of music tucked under her arm and a pencil through the bun in her hair and another behind her ear. One would think they were for making notes and writing down cues, but she used them more to throw at students when they were misbehaving. Louis had a collection of them in the percussion section back in the band room. Sometimes it saved him a trip to his locker between classes.

“What’s going on?” She asked when she arrived at her podium and looked up from her phone to see Niall collecting the fallen music with Chris’ help. “Again, Niall? Does this mean we need to add another tick on the board when we get back?”

At least Louis and Miss Hammond were on the same page.

 

On the bus ride to the next hotel, Amy and Casey sat together. From the back where Louis was sitting, he could see the tops of their brunette heads tilted against each other. He felt a sort of fondness at seeing them so happy together. Just a few seats behind them were Liam and Zayn. Liam had fallen asleep on Zayn’s shoulder, whose head was tilted back as he snoozed away himself.

Louis had one of Zayn’s comics in his lap. It was a Spider-Man one, the only series Louis ever bothered to read consistently since he was a little kid. He was sitting alone, but still had the company of Niall and Mason in the seat next to him. Whenever he had a free moment, Mason spent it working on his film project, like now as his bright laptop screen lit up his face.

When Louis was packing his bags into the bus with the others earlier that day, he felt weird about leaving the camp. They were only there for three days, but those three days were filled with more drama than anyone bargained for. Far too much of it was about who was dating who. Almost all of it was, actually. Maybe Miss Hammond was a little ahead of herself when she said band camp wouldn’t be at all like the movie.

Outside, the rain fell heavy against the bus window. Louis watched as the droplets raced down the glass, seeing which one would make it to the bottom first and silently rooting for the underdog. The sky was a dark grey and lightning could be seen in the distance, but the sound of the thunder was too far apart to be a concern quite yet.

This was the type of scenario where Louis really wished he could put in his headphones and tune out everything else. Even though a storm would usually be calming, the silent atmosphere was getting eerie. But of course, his phone was still sitting on Harry’s bedside table, filled with unread texts and notifications. He wondered how many were from Sam. He wanted to know what they said.

The shed was still the last time Louis actually talked to Harry. As in, a real conversation. But Harry wanted space. He said it himself that he needed to “figure his own shit out first.” Louis was just respecting his wishes. And also using it as an excuse to avoid any sort of awkward interaction.

All this time, Louis was worried that being with Harry would mean losing his best friend, but he still felt like that was happening. He didn’t want to have to pick all of him or none of him. Those two weren’t mutually exclusive. Now it seemed he was skipping right to the latter.

Louis stared out the window and tried to think of anything else. His exams at the end of the month, their final performance tomorrow, that new Marvel movie that he and Zayn were planning to see when they got back. But it was hard to pick what thoughts he got lost in when he could see the reflection of a curly haired boy in the seat in front of him.

The storm was getting worse as they continued on the empty highway. Rain now pounded on the roof and the sky looked like the sun had already set, even though it was only two in the afternoon. A sign passed that said the next town was in ten kilometers. The wind was so strong that the branches of the surrounding trees were brushing against it. That was the town they’d stop in until the storm passed, Miss Hammond announced.

Goose bumps were appearing on Louis’ arms as the temperature inside the bus dropped. The plain red t-shirt that he left camp in just wasn’t cutting it anymore. At least he knew to be prepared. If there was one lesson his mum taught him that he’d never forget, it was to never leave home without some sort of jacket. Back home, if he wasn’t wearing one, guaranteed he had one in his locker or on the back seat of his car.

In this case, he knew he still had one stuffed in his backpack-turned-seat-mate. He ruffled through the bottom until he could yank out the purple fabric. At that point he couldn’t care less that the jumper belonged to Harry. He had a very low tolerance for being cold. This problem wouldn’t have occurred if he sat with Harry. He was a human thermos.

When he fixed the torso sleeves from being inside out, something hit the floor with a loud thump. Whatever it was, it sounded relatively heavy and like it must be made of plastic. Louis peeked his head under the seat in front of him to see where the object landed.

Now, at the time, it looked like glowing white beams shined down from heaven on the sight Louis was witnessing. In actuality, it was probably just the light from his lock screen as he dropped his jaw and stared down at his phone. He was _sure_ he left it on Harry’s bedside table, but in the chaos of that morning he must’ve managed to get it in his sweater pocket at some point.

Wasting no more time, Louis snatched his phone up and immediately noticed the messages on his phone. Five from his mum, three from his sisters, two from Harry, two from Zayn, one from Niall, and none from Sam. The battery was only at seventeen percent and the switch was turned to silent. He always put it on silent before he went to bed. He didn’t need some retweet notification from Twitter waking him up in the middle of the night.

He decided to answer his mum and sisters first, letting them know what happened with his phone and assuring them the trip was going fine. The texts from Liam and Niall were asking why they were late back on the day they left for the trip. Harry was apologizing for being so grumpy that morning, before he knew that Louis didn’t have his phone. Louis would be lying if he said he wasn’t surprised, and even a bit upset, about the lack of messages from Sam. Not even a “Have a safe trip!” or “See you when you get back!” The last message sent in the conversation was a goodnight text from Louis. He never got a response.

At the bottom of the notifications, however, was a voicemail. The only person that ever called him was his mum, and maybe his Nan once a week if he hadn’t stopped by to visit her in a while. But no one ever left voicemails.

He called his mailbox and did as instructed to press 1-1 to listen to the new message before bringing the phone back to his ear.

He immediately recognized the voice as Harry.

_“Hey Lou. I’m at the bonfire right now, but I snuck off with Zayn and Niall so if I don’t make much sense you can blame the cookies. I just broke up with Gillian, which I meant to tell you before we started yelling at each other.”_

At first, the tone was calm. Maybe a bit raspy from drowsiness. The message was from the night of their fight at the campfire. Of course Harry was high when he made the call. Weed always made him impulsive to say everything he was thinking. If you told sober Harry a secret, you’d have to make sure you wouldn’t mind stoned Harry blabbing it to anyone around.

 _“I know you probably hate me right now, but I want you to know I still love you. As a friend, sure, but I think I might-_ _I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you,_ ” Harry’s strained voice rung in his ear and suddenly Louis’ focus was reigned back in. He stared blankly at the back of the seat in front of him with wide eyes as he listened.

_“After that night on the roof I couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss, but when you never brought it up, I assumed you forgot. Or maybe didn’t want to remember.”_

Didn’t want to remember?! Of course he wanted to remember it. He thought _Harry_ was the one who forgot it happened. But even still, memory wasn’t the problem. The problem was how terrified Louis was of the weight it held. How much he wanted it to happen again. How much he realized right then that maybe Harry was the only person he wanted to kiss from now on. And that how that was probably unrequited.

_“When you said that night meant nothing to you that hurt. It really fucking hurt because it meant a whole lot to me. But I still love you and right now I think that might be killing me because you don’t even care enough to answer your goddamn phone.”_

He heard a click and a robotic voice let him know that was the end of the message.

His heart felt heavy and his face was flushed to a bright red. Of course that night on the roof meant something to him. It meant far more to him than he was ready to admit. But he had no idea Harry felt any of this. He didn’t understand why Harry never confronted him about it. Did he have the same fears as Louis? Did he even want to act on his feelings, or did he just need to get them out in the open?

 _No, enough of the assumptions,_ Louis thought. They had to talk this out face to face. There was no more running away from confrontation. No matter how hard it might be to get it all out in the open, they had to figure out what the hell was happening between them.

Before he had a chance to come up with a game plan, the bus was coming to a halt outside in the parking lot of a brightly lit truck stop.

“Alright, everyone to the restaurant,” Hammond called out over the chatter. “We’re stopping here until the rain lightens up.”

Louis ended up at the back of the line of people leaving the bus. As he shuffled closer to the front, he watched as each person that stepped off joined the herd of students running for shelter. When it was his turn, he pulled up his hood and began to sprint. The water was soaking right through to his shirt while his feet pounded through puddles on the wet pavement. He reached the doors and immediately searched the lobby for Harry.

“Is that my sweater?” Harry’s voice sounded behind him. Louis spun around and without a second thought, took him aside towards the bench in the waiting area, but didn’t sit down.

“We have to talk,” Louis said sternly.

“You don’t know how many times I’ve been told that in the last few days.”

Louis glanced at his surroundings. The hostess at the stand looked flustered as she tried to figure out how to seat all of these kids at once. Hammond had just walked in and was marching through the crowd to try to offer her assistance. The restaurant was at least half full and the noise level was only going up. They weren’t the only ones who decided to stop here to wait out the storm.

“Follow me,” Louis commanded and grabbed Harry’s hand to guide him down a narrow hallway towards the bathrooms.

“Where are we going to have this talk? The men’s room?”

“I was thinking more like a broom closet.” Even Louis didn’t know if he was being sarcastic. He just wanted to find somewhere private, and at this point wouldn’t exactly rule out a broom closet. Or the men’s room.

Past the kitchen was a door right at the end of the hallway and Louis figured he had nothing to lose so he pushed it open with as much strength as he could muster. When they stepped onto the small sheltered patio next to a dumpster, Louis wasn’t sure this was exactly where he wanted to have the conversation, but it would have to do.

“What are we doing out here?” Harry shouted over the sound of the rain hitting the metal roof above them. Louis let go of his hand and took a step away before facing him.

“I found my phone,” Louis started, pulling the device out from his pocket to show him. “You called me the other night. I listened to the voicemail.”

Harry’s face turned pale and you could see his Adam’s apple move as he gulped. “You did?”

“I didn’t mean it when I said what happened on the roof didn’t mean anything to me.” That was the first thing Louis had to get out of the way. He regretting saying it as soon as he did, but he was too caught up in the moment to take it back. Now he had to.

“I know.” Harry nodded quickly and looked down at his feet. Louis crossed his arms over his chest. The stance wasn’t physically comfortable with the amount of water absorbed into his clothes, but it made him feel protected.

“Did you still think that you love me?” He asked quieter, head tilted as he tried to meet Harry’s eyes.

“I know that I do.”

“Okay. Why?”

That simple question made Harry’s head snap up. He creased his eyebrows together and stopped kicking at nothing on the ground. Water poured down in streams over the gutters around them. The sheltered area was small and the wind was so strong that a bit of rain was still getting through. That was the least of their worries right now.

“What do you mean why? Louis, I’ve always loved you. But after we kissed, it wasn’t the same anymore.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Definitely a good thing.”

“But how do you know?” Louis threw his hands up in frustration. “You’re my best friend! I can’t fall in love with my best friend! It just doesn’t work like that.” _What would everyone think?_ He wanted to add.

“Why not? Do you not feel the same?”

“Of course I feel the same!” Louis took a step closer to look him in the eye, but immediately regretted it and diverted his eyes once he felt the intensity there.

“And if you didn’t, do you still think we’d be standing here right now? Or would you have let this go weeks ago?”

Louis didn’t know how to answer that because it wasn’t something he ever considered. He always knew he had feelings, but he thought they’d just go away. Now he was starting to realize it doesn’t work like that.

“I don’t know,” he muttered and that was the truth.

Harry narrowed his eyes but kept his expression sincere. “Then what are you so afraid of?”

“I’m afraid that once I have all of you, it’s so much easier to lose all of you. I can’t let that happen.” The words tumbled out of his mouth so easily because that was also the truth.

“And it won’t. Lou, don’t you want to give this a try? You’ll never be happy if all you can think of is future grief that won’t even happen.” Cautiously, Harry tried to take Louis’ hands in his. He hesitated until Louis complied. “Before anything else, we are friends. Nothing changes that, okay?”

“You can’t guarantee that. Things _do_ change.”

“You’re right,” Harry shrugged, “I can’t guarantee anything. For all I know, this bus will crash on our way home and we’ll all be dead and none of this will even matter.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Louis rolled his eyes.

“Take your own advice. You don’t just avoid doing things because you’re afraid of the possible negative outcome. Statistically, it’s a 50/50 chance that things between us work out well. I like those odds, but I’m not really thinking that far ahead. If you want to stay just friends, that’s fine too, but I think taking the chance will be worth it.”

Louis didn’t have to turn away to gather his thoughts. Every word Harry said just made them become clearer. His unsure frown grew slowly into a hopeful smile. The puzzle pieces in his head were just starting to click. Finally, he knew what he wanted. And it was the same thing he really wanted all along.

“Okay,” Louis eventually nodded, “I think so too.”

“Good.”

“I really don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Good to know that I’m irreplaceable,” Harry smirked.

“Don’t get too cocky,” Louis replied through a suppressed smile. “So what now?”

“I don’t want us to get into anything you aren’t ready for. We can take this as slow as you want,” reassured Harry.

“How about a date then? I know this restaurant nearby. Never been there, but I hear it’s pretty popular during rainstorms.”

Harry looked down at their hands to giggle causing Louis to laugh as well. Not so much at his own attempt at a joke, but out of relief that they finally both figured their shit out. At least for now.

“I think that sounds perfect.”


	6. Coda

No one asked why Harry and Louis got a booth alone in the corner. Probably because they didn’t notice, nor did they care. Not even Hammond came by to ask why they were missing for the first ten minutes while everyone else was settling down. The two of them laughed far too loudly and took too long to order because they were spending more time talking than looking at the menu, and no one even looked their way.

When they finally did order, Louis got a grilled cheese and Harry asked for a BLT and side salad. Louis found that hilarious because Harry getting a _salad_ was definitely out of character. With that kid’s teenage metabolism, you’d rarely catch him eating something that wasn’t deep fried and covered in grease when they went out somewhere.

“Salads can be good, you know,” Harry defended, taking a sip of his tea. They were both on their second cup since it was keeping them warmer than the failing boiler that was heating the small diner.

“Yeah, when you cover it in ranch dressing. You aren’t fooling anyone, Harold.”

The waitress soon returned with their food and Louis was inclined to put as much effort as possible into making Harry envious of the pile of chips that came with his sandwich. He picked one up off the side and broke it in half. A thin cloud of steam escaped.

“Look at that. Cooked to perfection,” Louis admired before popping both halves into his mouth.

“I hope it burns your tongue,” Harry quipped as he bit into his sandwich.

“Careful, that has bacon in it,” Louis warned. “You could run the risk of it tasting good.”

“When it comes to bacon, it can clog my arteries as much as it wants.” Harry took another bite and closed his eyes to dramatically savour it. “Really though,” he resumed, still chewing his food, “might as well eat as healthy as we can now. It’s going to be nothing but rubbish when we’re off at uni.”

The mention of university made Louis’ grin fade. He sat back in his seat and bunched a napkin up in his hand. University was a topic Louis actually had managed to ignore thinking about the last few days, but he supposed it would be something he’d have to confront eventually.

“Harry, I didn’t get into uni,” Louis confessed with a sigh.

Harry’s expression turned to a melancholy shock. “What?”

“My application was declined. I got the letter the day before we left. I have enough credits to graduate, but I’m failing chemistry and I need it to get in. I can re-take it online next year, but I’ll have to re-apply for the year after that. I know we wanted to go together, but I’ll still try to get into King’s.”

Harry paused to take it in before asking, “Are you okay?” There was sympathy in his voice and that was the last thing Louis wanted. He was perfectly fine. He would take a gap year to work and finish the classes he needed, then figure everything else out after. He had time.

“Yeah, I am. It’s probably for the best. Honestly, I wouldn’t know what the hell I’d be doing when I got there anyway,” Louis exhaled a laugh, but it wasn’t filled with humour.

“It’ll be weird going to school without you.” Harry picked at his food with a fork.

“It’ll be weird hanging around back home without you. But we have video chat and there’s always weekends and holidays to visit.”

“I guess you’re right,” Harry said with a bit more enthusiasm before bringing a forkful of the ranch covered lettuce to his mouth.

Louis scrunched up his nose. “I’m going to be honest with you, that looks disgusting.”

“So does your melting bread and goop.”

Louis looked down at his grilled cheese sandwich. The top piece of bread was sliding off on one half and the colour of the cheese was closer to yellow than orange.

“Don’t be rude to my poor sandwich or I’ll start pelting you with chips,” Louis teasingly threatened, holding one up to show him. Harry started laughing.

“You’re about as terrifying as a kitten,” he claimed just before a chip smacked against his cheek. Harry looked down at his lap where it fell, then back up to a smirking Louis. In retaliation, he picked a baby tomato out of his salad and whipped it at Louis’ shoulder. Louis stared at where the non-existent wound would have been with his mouth open dramatically in shock.

“Oh, you don’t want to go there. I’ll win, I have more ammo.” Louis pointed at his plate with open palms, still full of chips, then to Harry’s two remaining tomatoes on a bed of lettuce.

Grabbing the soup spoon next to his plate, Harry scooped up the remaining tomatoes and pulled the metal back with the tip of his finger, launching them across the table. Before they even reached Louis, he was already collecting chips in his hands to fire back. Each one that reached Harry’s side of the table, he used to throw back until the plate was half empty and they were laughing hysterically while having a full-on food fight.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” Louis demanded as Harry let out a goofy laugh and tried to shield himself using the table. It wasn’t at all a problem for Louis who just stood up to get a better angle. The chips were all over the table, floor, and seats making them look like actual five-year-olds.

“Hey!” Miss Hammond called with a motherly tone from the table she was sitting at a few seats back. “What’s wrong with you? You’re practically adults! Pick those up.”

The boys froze in action and looked over to her, forgetting the setting they were actually in. School trip, middle of a restaurant; two people obnoxiously throwing food at each other wouldn’t exactly go unnoticed. Everyone in the restaurant was staring at them by now.

“Sorry,” they muttered in unison before glancing at each other and stifling their laughter. They began picking the pieces up, feeling slightly childish.

“For the record,” Harry said when they were both ducked under the table to retrieve the ones from the floor, “this isn’t over.”

“Whatever you say, babe.” Louis replied, letting a pet name slip out. He watched Harry for a second to see if he reacted, but he was too busy making a chip-discard pile in the centre of the table.

When they were finished cleaning their mess, the waitress stopped by again to collect the plate of floor chips and ask if they needed anything else. Louis actually did have something in mind.

“Can I get a bottle of whatever domestic beer you have?” Louis requested as sweetly as he could. Harry immediately started cracking up from across the table and Louis shot him a wide-eyed look as if to say ‘shut up so Hammond doesn’t notice!’

“Sure. Can I see your ID?” Louis reached into his back pocket for his wallet, but his dreams were crushed when that same stern voice was shouting behind him.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. He’s sixteen, don’t serve him anything!” Hammond lied, but it was enough for the waitress to shake her head and walk away without another word.

“Come on, you know I’m eighteen.” Louis turned around so Miss Hammond could see his face as he whined.

“Not today you aren’t. Eat your grilled cheese.”

Unconcernedly, Hammond went back to the pasta she was working on with the hand that wasn’t scrolling through her phone and Louis slumped into his seat. Harry was staring him down with loosely crossed arms and a smirk.

“Well I must say, you do make a compelling argument,” Harry said sarcastically.

“Just eat your ranch dressing soup,” Louis remarked, but had to use his hand to physically hide the fond smile that was tugging at his lips.

 

By the time Miss Hammond and the driver agreed that is was safe enough to embark through the storm and finish this lag of their trip, it was already six in the evening and there was another hour of driving left.

Upon arriving at the hotel, the fact that they had to share a room was something Harry and Louis completely forgot about. Really, it shouldn’t have been a big deal. They were used to sharing a bed at least once a week anyway. Sleeping in the same room when they each got their _own_ bed was nothing. Only now, it didn’t feel like nothing. Not when their newfound “relationship” was actually undefined and they still weren’t sure how to proceed normally, never mind being alone in a hotel room.

This hotel was much older than the one they stayed in earlier that week, which explained the twin sized beds and the keys for the rooms being actual keys instead of key cards. Harry was put in charge of their set of keys, which was probably the best idea. Louis was notorious for being forgetful, especially when it came to important things like keys and his _phone._

While the phone situation was pretty bad, it hardly matched up to when Louis left his car keys in the spare room at his aunt’s house in London after a visit during the winter holidays. Luckily his aunt was kind enough to take the four hour drive to return them over a weekend. For Christmas that year, his aunt got him a spare set.

As soon as Harry got the door unlocked, Louis immediately dropped his suitcase and headed straight for the nearest plug. His phone died back in the restaurant and all he could think about on the way to the hotel was how much he wanted to charge it. Well, maybe not the only thing. A certain dimple-cheeked boy may have been a distraction.

The room itself was exactly as expected. Tiny bathroom, beds with weird green floral bedding that not even someone’s grandmother would want in their house, and a TV right out of 1996. Harry was quick to claim the bed near the window, citing that he hadn’t had to chance to pick his own bed once this trip. Louis didn’t argue, figuring he’d probably crawl in next to him when he got too cold in the night anyway.

“So, um, are you tired?” Louis asked from where he was sitting on the carpet next to his charging phone, waiting for it start up again.

“It’s not even 8 o’clock yet.” Harry lifted an eyebrow and lounged back on the bed he chose.

“I know, I just- what is there to do? We’re kind of confined to our rooms until morning.”

“We could invite the other lads over?” Harry suggested.

“Socializing with more people wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

“There’s always TV.” Harry picked up the remote off of the bedside table and hit the power button. The TV made a flickering noise when it turned on and sizzled as the picture showed up of a scrolling channel guide.

“Not used to that anymore,” Louis commented. “Sounds like it’s going to explode”

“You’d think the hotel would’ve upgraded after twenty years.”

After minutes of watching the titles of different shows appear and disappear on screen, eventually Harry settled on a channel that was playing reruns of _Family Guy._ It was never a show he found particularly funny or interesting, but Louis liked it and anything was better than silence. 

Four episodes went by before a word was said between them. Louis remained sitting on the floor for the first one, but moved to his own bed during a commercial break in between when his phone reached 75%.

When the fourth episode came to an end, Harry hit mute.

“Am I somehow making you uncomfortable?” Harry sat up to ask and crossed his legs in front of him. Louis looked over from where he tucked himself under the blankets, a bit taken back by the question.

“What? No.”

“Really? Because I think this is the longest we’ve ever gone without talking. I get we’re in new territory now, but you have to tell me if something isn’t right.”

With a slow sigh, Louis pushed the blanket off of him and moved to the foot of Harry’s bed, sitting with one leg folded under him and the other hanging off the side. He felt sleepy all of the sudden and kind of wished he thought to change into something to wear to bed earlier. But he didn’t want to sleep. He wasn’t done with this day yet.

“It’s not that something isn’t right, I just don’t really know where to go from here.” Harry was watching him with a steady gaze. His eyes were also low from drowsiness, but he remained attentive. Louis never realized before the way that he clenched his jaw when he was focused or how cleanly it could be traced right down to his chin.

“What I’ve been trying to figure out is how we’re supposed to go from friends to ‘something more’ just like that.” Louis continued while looking down at his hands. “I feel like we’re starting back at square one, but I don’t want to.”

“Maybe we could start somewhere in the middle.”

“What, like friends with benefits?!” The way Louis said it made it clear that he was appalled by the idea.

“I was thinking something a bit more exclusive,” Harry squinted one eye when he made the suggestion, like he was worried how Louis would react. He wasn’t at all, though. He had a feeling that they were pretty much on the same page now.

“That sounds much better,” Louis offered a sweet smile in return. It was Harry’s favourite smile of his. The one where he squinted so hard his eyes became slits and he bit the inside of his cheeks to stop it from getting any bigger. He smiled like that when he feeling embarrassed, but the good kind. Like when you’re so happy about something that you don’t want to show it because it might be a little excessive. In Louis’ case, to the point where he might have even been feeling a little smug.

Harry, on the other hand, made it very obvious that he was beaming. “I thought so.”

“How about for now, we just start with this…”

Louis scooted a bit closer to lean in and for the first time, it was natural the way their lips connected because they finally both felt sure about it. They kissed slowly and lazily with no purpose. For Harry, he wasn’t trying to prove to himself that his feelings were valid. Louis was no longer concerned about any repercussions that may come.

All worries were nonexistent when Louis ran his fingers through the curls at the back of Harry’s neck. The feelings weren’t unreciprocated when Harry pulled him closer by his hips until Louis was practically sitting on his lap. And definitely not when Louis began to lay on his back and drew Harry along as well with a hand guiding him softly on one cheek.

The feeling was truly freeing for Louis. He was finally able to let go of these unwritten rules he had of who he was allowed to love. The false fear of abandonment had disappeared, being replaced with hope and excitement.

At this point, with Harry straddling his hips and a kind-of-but-not-really problem forming in his pants, Louis had to make a decision of what exactly was going to happen from here. He was pretty sure he had a clear idea.

“Did you bring- uh- anything?” he asked breathlessly when he pulled away for air. Harry looked dumfounded for a moment before realizing what Louis meant.

“Didn’t think to add that to my packing list.”

“Shouldn’t we make sure we have one before we go any further?” Louis spoke low when Harry leaned down to kiss the corner of his jaw. “I might have one in my wallet.”

Harry pushed himself back up into a sitting position and swung one leg off of Louis to plant a foot clumsily on the floor. “I’ll grab it,” he said before walking to retrieve it from the TV stand at the other end of the room.

He did manage to find a condom in one of the centre folds, but smirked when he took a good look at it.

“What?” Louis propped himself up on his elbows to ask.

Harry held it up between two fingers. “It’s two years expired.”

“Must’ve been old when I put it in there,” he defended, playing off the excuse with a shrug.

“Yeah? When you put it in there a year and a half ago?”

“Shut it!” Louis grabbed a pillow from the opposite side of the bed and tossed it in Harry’s direction, who was buckled over in laughter. He missed completely and it landed at his feet.

“I’m just teasing you!” Harry reassured as he sauntered back to the bed to sit down. “You’re cute when you’re flustered,” he commented, brushing a piece of hair away from Louis’ face.

“I’m always cute.” Louis’ eyes looked up at him, but his head was still tilted down.

“Is that so?”

“You’re always cute too though. So really we’re perfect for each other.”

“Can’t argue there.” Louis cupped his hands around Harry’s face and kissed him again, trying to resume what they were in the middle of. “But really, Lou, should we just wait until we get back home?” Harry pulled away to add.

“I don’t think pregnancy is too big of a concern.”

“Louis…” Harry warned firmly. Louis let his shoulders drop in defeat even though he knew Harry was most definitely right.

“Fine. Shall we ask the front desk if they have any?” Louis reached past him to pick up the phone receiver.

“Yeah, that’ll look great. One of the rooms from the school trip on the third floor calling for a condom.”

With a huff, Louis dropped the phone back on its base. “Do you have a better suggestion?”

“We could go buy some,” suggested Harry slowly.

“Now? It’s almost ten and we aren’t supposed to go out.”

“When has a curfew ever stopped you?”

Louis thought about it for a moment, absentmindedly brushing his fingers over Harry’s knee and studying the freckles on his nose. 

“You do have a point there,” he decided.

“An adventure it is, then!” Harry cheered and was already standing up to grab his jacket. The rain was long gone, but it was definitely still below ten degrees outside. Louis wasn’t sure how he felt about this specific outing, however he was definitely up for going on an adventure.

Peeking out the door and down the hallway, Harry had his head hovering above Louis’ to check if the coast was clear. Louis tiptoed out first, careful to make as little noise as possible. There was no way of telling who was still awake and Miss Hammond had ears like a bat.

They opted to take the stairs instead of waiting for the lift so they could spend as little time in the hallway as possible. Unfortunately, the stairs were cement and Harry happened to be wearing his brown heeled ankle boots that were long worn with holes and scratches in the leather. Every step he took, the boots clicked against the floor.

“Did you really have to wear those?” Louis stopped to complain.

“What would you prefer I wear? Ugg boots?” Harry retorted, amused.

“How about normal trainers?”

Louis resumed walking down the stairs before Harry could react, this time a little faster because he realized they were wasting time. The increased speed turned more into a stomping which made the soles of his converse begin to click as well. Both sets of shoes created more noise than Louis would have liked. He could see Harry’s knowing smirk out of the corner of his eye, but he refused to give Harry the satisfaction of acknowledging it.

The next obstacle to face would be the lobby. Even having the person working at the front desk see them could be risky. Louis took Harry by his hand to lead him towards the side exit just outside of the stairwell. They were still in direct view of the front desk and two boys running towards the door wasn’t exactly stealthy, but they made it without any direct contact with another person. Reaching outside had never felt so relieving.

“So where do we go?” Harry asked as they stood looking at a dark back alley that seemed to lead only into a residential area.

“I don’t know. This was your idea.” Louis stuffed his hands in his pockets because it was absolutely freezing and he was starting to think the adventure wasn’t worth it.

“My idea began and ended with the sole suggestion of going out to buy condoms.”

“Alright, well, we aren’t going to find them here. Let’s start walking.”

Heading the opposite way of the neighborhood generally seemed like a good start. Ideally, they wanted to find some sort of pharmacy, but whether any were open at this time of night might cause an issue. Their plan wasn’t exactly well thought-out based on the driving force being teenage hormones. But at this point, they were determined.

They walked close together once they reached the sidewalk, Louis crowding Harry to absorb whatever amount of heat he could from him. If they could remember right from when they drove through here in the bus, there should’ve been some shops just a few blocks over. One of them had to have what they were looking for.

Every time they passed under a streetlamp, Louis could see his breath as he exhaled and was clearly shivering. Harry noticed soon enough and offered his jacket.

“I can’t take it. You’ll freeze!” Louis exclaimed.

“I wore layers, I’ll be fine. I’d rather you not turn into an ice cube.”

Harry shrugged off the coat and wrapped it around Louis’ shoulders. He would’ve put his arms through the sleeves, but he had them folded to his chest and he wasn’t sure he could untangle them at the moment. Louis muttered a soft thank you and Harry wrapped an arm securely around him to hold him closer.

“This is probably a bad time to ask, but, um,” Harry stumbled a bit on his words and Louis tried to look him in the eyes and focused on stopping his teeth from chattering. “Did you break-up with Sam already? If you were going to. I mean, I assumed you were going to considering our current situation but-”

“Of course I did,” Louis replied simply. “On the drive here I sent him a text. He said he saw it coming, believe it or not.”

“Oh, well, that’s good then.”

“I guess we were the only ones who were oblivious to this whole thing,” he breathed a laugh through chattering teeth. “You should just know, it was always you over him. The only reason I got back with him, or almost did, was because I didn’t know you were even an option. You were still with you-know-who at the time.”

“Oh, you mean Voldemort?”

“I think she prefers Gillian, but we can go with Voldemort if you want.”

“She was actually cool about the whole thing too. I know I’ve said this before, but she’s not as evil as you think she is.”

“I know, but it’s more fun having a sworn enemy. Especially when you don’t actually hate them.”

The crosswalk light ahead was red when they reached it. A sign could be seen for a pharmacy just across the street. While they waited, Louis pulled out a pack of cigarettes and his lighter because if anything could keep him warm, it would be that.

Louis didn’t smoke often. In fact, he almost never did unless he was drinking or hanging out with Zayn. For all he knew, this pack was probably Zayn’s and it just ended up with him by mistake. But today felt like an exception because he was cold and damnit if he didn’t have a long day and felt he deserved one.

Harry watched carefully while Louis held the white stick between his lips and used two hands to light it.

“You know, I’ve still never tried a cigarette,” Harry mentioned passively. Louis glanced at him while he tried to blow the smoke in the opposite direction.

“Are you telling me you want to try one?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“We could try shot gunning.”

Harry didn’t even try to hold back his laugh at the suggestion. “What, like what you see people do at parties in the movies? Have you even done that before?”

“Zayn showed me once.”

Harry’s eyebrows shot up, but the amused smile didn’t disappear. “Oh, so you’ve kissed Zayn? When was this? Does Liam know?”

“Relax, Officer Styles. We didn’t kiss, he blew smoke into my mouth. I actually saw him do it to Liam when we were hanging out once and I asked how it worked so he showed me.”

“So show me, then.”

The light to cross flashed on, but Louis was no longer interested in crossing just yet. Instead, he took a long drag from his cigarette and held it in while he pushed Harry backwards until he was pressed up against the chain linked fence that framed the street corner.

“Just breathe in,” Louis instructed through a whisper. Slowly, their lips brushed together and Louis blew the stream of smoke right in between Harry’s.

When you see shot gunning done in movie, it’s usually done somewhere like a dimly lit basement during a party and is meant to look sexy. This was the idea Louis was going for, but also completely forgot about Harry’s initial comment of how he _never tried a cigarette before._

Seconds after the smoke reached his lungs, Harry quickly whipped his head around so he wouldn’t cough directly in Louis’ face. Louis took a step back to give him his space.

“Jesus, that is horrible. You enjoy smoking that?” He was still choking and his voice was rough and shallow. Louis couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous this whole thing was right from the idea of it.

“It’s an acquired taste.”

“Yeah, the taste of death.”

That had to be the end of that because the crosswalk light changed again and Louis decided to stomp out the cigarette so they could continue on their way while Harry tried to cleanse his lungs with fresh air. He didn’t really feel the need to finish it.

When they reached the other side of the street, the shop was in better view from the sidewalk. So was the large ‘closed’ sign that hung on the door.

“I knew it would be too late for anything to be open! Maybe there’s a petrol station or something around here that we can check out.” Louis turned in a circle to examine his immediate surroundings. All he could see was a department store with all its lights out and a take-out Chinese food restaurant.

Harry watched him with a soft smile and stepped closed so he could place one hand lightly on each of Louis’ cheeks and looked into his eyes.

“What?” Louis asked, drawing his eyebrows together in confusion.

“Babe,” the pet name was so easy, “what are we doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just hours ago you were stressing about how worried you were about ruining our friendship by being together. Do you even want to do this? Shouldn’t we wait a bit and take it slow?”

Louis sighed because he knew Harry was probably right. Why was he suddenly so eager for them to have sex? Sure, he could’ve just got caught up in the moment, but that didn’t explain why he was standing here. Maybe it was because of how much being with Harry excited him. And not in a sexual way or them being in a relationship. Just being around him was exciting enough.

That’s how Louis always wanted to feel when he was with someone he loved. He figured, if their presence alone excited you and made you want to do crazy things, then you probably picked the right person. Now that he knew he made the right choice, there was no need to rush anything from here.

“You know, I think I’m getting tired anyway,” Louis said, even holding back a yawn because that wasn’t a lie.

“We should probably get back to the hotel then,” Harry decided.

“I think that might be the best idea you’ve had all night.”

Getting back into the hotel and to their room proved much harder than getting out. The only entrance from the outside were the front doors, so passing through the lobby and front desk worker was inevitable. They walked briskly to the stairs and when Harry glanced towards the desk, the guy had his head down and was paying them no attention.

Louis stopped promptly in front of the lift and insisted they take it since, “No offence, but I’d rather not listen to your shoes click at 70bpm.” However, the teasing was only an excuse so they wouldn’t have to walk up the stairs. Louis bought Harry those boots for his sixteenth birthday, of course he loved to see him wear them.

The weird thing about taking a lift with someone else is that, no matter how long the ride, you always feel like you can’t speak while in that tiny enclosed space. It’s not an uncomfortable silence exactly. It’s more like a pause that wouldn’t be resumed until the doors opened again.

Only, when the doors opened, they didn’t expect to be greeted by a grinning Miss Hammond with her arms folded and her head cocked.

“Have a nice walk, boys?” she asked with false friendliness in her voice, backing up so they could exit into the hallway.

Harry and Louis exchanged a worried look. In it, Harry tried to say “I have no idea how to handle this situation!” with his eyes, while Louis said, “Just let me do the talking. I can get is out of this.” That rarely proved to be true, but Louis had a better chance of talking his way out of something than Harry did.

“We were just going to get a coke from a vending machine in the lobby. The one on this floor was all out,” Louis said casually. Harry vigorously nodded his head which probably didn’t help the lie in the least. If anything, it only made them less convincing.

“I can tell by all the bottles you’ve returned with. You seemed to have brought the smell of smoke with you as well. I know it’s cold in here, but tell me, were jackets really necessary for a trip to the lobby?” Her voice held so much sarcasm that Louis knew he had no chance as soon as she opened her mouth. Hammond was the only teacher that didn’t fall for Louis’ bullshit, probably because she was a veteran in his tactics. While it was something Louis respected, he also refused to give up so quickly.

“I may have stepped out for a cigarette, but you said smoking was allowed on this trip!”

“Yeah, but before curfew. What, you didn’t think I was going to check rooms? And I know that smoking doesn’t take twenty minutes, I’m not an idiot.”

Louis looked at Harry for one last stroke of inspiration, but he had nothing. He was oh-for-three, if you included the restaurant earlier on and the whole trombone incident.

“Do you want another excuse, or should we get right to the punishment bargaining?” Louis sighed, and Hammond seemed only partially satisfied.

“You don’t want to tell me where you went?”

“I think we’d all benefit from not disclosing that information,” Louis affirmed biting his lips together.

“It was nothing illegal,” Harry added for good measure.

“Fine. Two days after school detention or one week organizing the sheet music shelves in the band room at lunch. Your choice.”

Putting forth their attempt at telepathy again, the choice was easily made with another look.

“We’ll take the organizing,” Louis declared, but the drop of Harry’s jaw made Louis realize he would’ve taken the detention instead. So maybe their telepathy didn’t _actually_ work, but it was worth a shot.

“Alright, now get back to your room. Next time I should just hold onto your key so you can’t leave without getting locked out,” Hammond commented to herself as she turned down the opposite direction of the hallway. She watched them walk until they were in their room before closing the door to her own.

That night, they didn’t even pretend they were going to try to sleep in separate beds. Louis curled up against Harry’s back and let one arm droop around his waist. The feeling was warm and safe, just as it always had been.

Louis nudged Harry to see if he’d make any kind of noise or movement to signal that he was awake. When he remained still, Louis decided to use his words instead.

“Harry,” he whispered through the almost pitch black room, “are you asleep?”

“Not yet,” he replied, but his voice was already raspy and lethargic.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

If Louis’ eyes weren’t already closed he’d roll them so far to the back of his head because that was something he was pretty sure his step-dad would respond with. He couldn’t see Harry’s face, but he was probably grinning from ear to ear because he thought he was being clever.

“I’m going to ask anyway and pretend you didn’t just say that,” Louis said in his normal voice and he was pretty sure Harry’s loud exhale was a lazy laugh. “It’s not really a big deal and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want, but do you know what you are? Like gay or bi or pan or…?” Louis trailed off because he knew there were more he could name but his tired brain didn’t have the energy to continue his sentence.

“I’m not sure,” he answered quickly, “I’ve always thought about it, but never really came to a conclusion.”

“That’s okay. You’re allowed to not be sure.” His statement was met with silence. Louis thought Harry may have fallen asleep. “Do you like _me_?” he tried again.

Harry pulled the blanket closer to his chin and let out a soft “hmm?”

“I said, do you like me?”

“Of course I do,” he mumbled like it was most obvious thing in the world.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“Then that’s good enough for me.”

Harry didn’t reply, but Louis knew he heard. He was having trouble staying awake himself, so he gave in to the tugging on his eyelids and nuzzled his face into the back of Harry’s neck.  It was the best sleep either of them had in months.

 

The next morning, Harry awoke from the bright sunlight beaming through the window and illuminating the whole room. They must’ve forgotten to close the curtains the night before after stumbling in from their endeavor. He let out a quiet yawn, careful not to move too much and disturb the sleeping boy beside him. Harry had his arms still wrapped around Louis’ waist and his face was now nestled in the back crook of Louis’ neck. Harry could get used to waking up like this, next to his boyfriend.

 _Boyfriend._ God, he hadn’t even said it out loud yet, but he loved the way the thought bounced around in his mind. Louis was his boyfriend and to hell if he wasn’t excited about it.

Louis looked small bundled underneath all those blankets. His hair was sticking up in all directions and he had red lines on his face from the fabric being pressed against his skin for so long. Slowly, his chest moved up and down as he breathed through slightly parted lips. His eyes were closed tightly but the crease between them had softened. Harry had to admit to himself, as he brushed a light finger across Louis’ warm cheek, that it was quite the adorable sight.

When Louis began to stir, Harry released him so he could turn from laying his side to on his back. He peeked only one eye open for a second to glance at Harry while he stretched his arms over his head. Still sleepy, he relaxed again on their shared pillow as if he was going back to sleep, but instead muttered a groggy “morning,” with his eyes closed.

“Morning,” Harry replied in the same tone with a small grin.

“What time is it?” he asked. He was still struggling to open his eyes and brought the blanket right up to his neck.

“Not sure.”

“Do we have more time to sleep?”

“I hope so.”

Harry leaned forward only a few centimeters so he could place a soft and lazy kiss on Louis’ forehead and Louis hummed in response. Pulling the blankets up further to bunch up near his head and block the sunlight, Harry shuffled closer to Louis the best he could without untangling their legs; they were in a twin-sized bed after all. Neither had the energy to get up and actually close the curtains.

An hour ticked by while both of them fell in and out of sleep, still holding the loose embrace. Louis didn’t remember the last time he felt this care-free. Harry couldn’t remember the last time he felt this happy.

 

“So that’s it? You guys are together now?” Niall was turned around in his seat with his arm hanging off the back rest. Along with Liam and Zayn, the five of them secluded themselves to the back of the bus for a bit of privacy. Making some kind of announcement to everyone that they were together felt weird to Harry and Louis, but they had to let their closest friends know what was going on at least. Besides, the others would find out soon enough. It’s not like they were going to actively keep their relationship a secret. Especially after what went down with Casey and Amy.

“We’re taking it slow, but yeah,” confirmed Louis.

“Yeah, I’m sure you took it real slow sharing a room last night.” Niall’s attempt at a joke was returned with a hard elbow to the ribs from Zayn.

“Don’t be a dick, that’s private!” Zayn accused while Niall squinted his eyes and grabbed his side in pain.

“You weren’t too worried about privacy when you on the phone with Liam after curfew last night. He was two rooms over, you couldn’t chill for a few hours?” he shot back. “Seriously, all my friends are hooking up. What am I supposed to do when we all hang out now?”

“‘Bachelor living the high life’ not sounding as fun anymore?” Harry questioned, referencing what Niall told him that night they snuck off to eat pot cookies.

Niall thought that over for a moment. “Actually, that’s right. This man cannot be tied down!” he declared.

“You say that now, but watch you meet some girl when you’re just out of school and get married by the time you finish uni,” Liam predicted from where he was perched sideways on his seat with his legs stretched in front of him. That was probably pretty accurate. If anyone was to lead the classic married-with-kids life out of them, it would be Niall. He just had the personality of a typical husband and goofy dad.

“That depends on if he can find a girl willing to put up with him. None of us wanted to even share a bed with him a few days ago,” Louis said.

“Hey, come on!” Niall whined, but all five of them were bent up in laughter at Niall’s expense. Even Niall himself found the idea of settling down amusing.

“All jokes aside, we are happy for you guys,” Zayn told Harry and Louis sincerely with the others nodding in agreement.

“And I’m going to say the same thing to you that I said to Amy when she told me about her and Casey: it’s about fucking time.”

Harry and Louis seemed content with the support from their friends. And a little taken back by the claims of how obvious they had been acting, but that didn’t matter anymore. When Louis turned his head to meet Harry’s eyes in a smile, Harry leaned forward for a short peck.

“Okay, that I’m fine with, but please don’t go as far with the PDA as these two because I can’t handle that from anyone.” Niall pointed an accusing finger between Liam and Zayn.

“Like you’re so innocent,” Liam defended, “I’ve seen you snog countless girls at parties right where everyone can see.”

“But that’s a _party_. It’s to be expected!”

“Good to see that they’re still more caught up in themselves than us,” Harry mumbled to Louis, tuning out the argument between the other three.

“Yeah,” Louis sighed, “I guess not much has changed.”

 

The sudden stress that was building up backstage wasn’t because the band was overly competitive, but they did _really_ want to win. Their streak was going on five years if they took the trophy home today. Miss Hammond wasn’t trying to add pressure, however she may have mentioned that fact about their streak once or twice in class. And during the drive to the theatre. And just now while they waited in their dressing room.

Theatre dressing rooms for band kids were absolute chaos. First of all, the rooms weren’t usually meant to fit over 20 people when there weren’t even ten mirrors. Not only was there concern about the amount of bodies that would fit, but the instruments and cases and sheet music would end up piled on top of one another or scattered on the floor.

Trying to rehearse in one of these tiny dressing rooms was a whole other story. You’d have students sitting on counters and standing on chairs just to see Miss Hammond’s hands while she conducted near the door. Louis even managed to squeeze himself in the corner underneath a counter with his drum pad and sticks just so he’d have his own space down there.

A small TV hanging on the wall showed the performances before them. It was only half paid attention to. Most of the competitors were large schools with bands ranging from anywhere between 30 and 50 students. These groups generally sounded great, but the adjudicators and other conductors know that that only meant mistakes could be easily hidden. The small bands that could sound like their strength was in numbers is what really impressed them.

After a quick run through of their 4-song set list, it was time for everyone to get organized. They had less than 20 minutes until they were on stage. In their same secluded corner, Louis was practicing some rolls with Brandon that he already mastered in an attempt to procrastinate.

“Did you bring the mallets in from the bus?” Brandon asked, lightly hitting his sticks against the wall.

Louis looked up at him from where he was sat on the floor with his legs folded. “No, you were supposed to grab them,” he replied slowly.

“Well I didn’t. Does that mean the box is still outside?”

“No, it means someone else had be responsible on your behalf.” Gillian strutted towards them, white plastic box in hand. She dropped it on the counter next to them, revealing her all-black outfit of a skirt and button-up blouse that was buttoned completely to the top with a small yellow tie to match their school colours. Everyone was wearing all-black because it was a requirement, but most went for simple jeans and a t-shirt. Gillian wanted to make sure she stood out.

“Oh, thank God,” Brandon sighed and touched her lightly on the shoulder. Gillian flinched away and a look of disgust flashed across her face, but Brandon didn’t even notice because he was too busy admiring the box.

“Um, can you give us a sec?” she asked Brandon who took a second to realize he was being spoken to.

“Oh! Yeah. Yes. Take your time.” He grabbed the box with the hand that wasn’t holding his sticks and shuffled through the crowd to the other side of the room.

Louis watched Gillian closely as she crouched down to sit next to him. Her expression was warm, but Louis stayed hesitant and suspicious.

“Did Hammond send you over here to punish me?” he asked while she got comfortable and pulled her skirt to cover her knees.

“No, that would be punishing me too.”

“Then why are you over here?”

“I want to make a truce.”

“What?”

Louis wasn’t surprised by the suggestion. Their whole feud was created over a shared jealously of the other’s relationship with Harry. Gillian hated how much time Harry spent with Louis and, even though he wouldn’t admit it, Louis was jealous Gillian got to call Harry her boyfriend. But that was over and now the mutual feeling seemed to be one of content. All that was left was to make it official.

“Well, there’s really no reason for us to remain “enemies”,” she made air quotes with her fingers.

“I don’t know, it is kind of fun,” Louis tilted his head to the side and pushed out his bottom lip in thought.

“You got me there.” Gillian laughed when she said it and Louis was sure it was the first time she ever laughed _with_ him instead of _at_ him.

“I suppose a truce should be in order. But I do have one condition.” Louis held up a finger and turned to look her in the eye. “I’m still going to make jokes at your expense. I only ever mean it in the friendliest of ways.” He grinned as sweetly as he could.

Gillian put out her right hand for a handshake. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said as they shook on it. “And that condition goes both ways.”

“Deal.”

Just as she was standing back up, Brandon came back still holding the box of mallets and had concern written all over his face.

“What’s wrong, mate?” Louis asked him, pushing himself up as well.

“Look!” he held out the box so Louis could see inside. Each individual mallet head, as well as the bells and shakers, were covered in masking tape. He picked a few up to get a closer look and try to take some off. No damage was done to anything as it ripped off, but the tape was wrapped around multiple times on each one.

“What the hell?” Louis looked between the box and Gillian. It didn’t take a detective to figure out the culprit behind her sneaky smile.

“I got bored on the bus. Come on, I still had to get you back for the gum!” she defended. Louis didn’t know what else to do besides rub his temples and sigh. The prank wasn’t great on terms of creativity, but he had to admit that her timing and execution was brilliant. They still had the whole percussion section to set up and definitely didn’t have extra time to be unwrapping tape.

“I can respect that,” Louis decided.

“We’re on stage in ten. Good luck!” She told them cheerily and skipped off.

The more Louis thought about it, as he and Brandon stood ripping off tape, the more he realized that he and Gillian were more alike than he realized. Big personalities tend to clash and those were the two biggest personalities in that room. She wasn’t so bad, he supposed. Harry had been telling him that for months. Now that his opinion was unbiased, he could see it.

They were set up and ready to perform with one minute to spare.

At best, the band’s performance was adequate. They played relatively well, showcasing their skill and capability despite their size. So when they stood grouped together on stage with the other five bands in their category, clad in all-black and nerves running high, they weren’t surprised to hear their results. Second place with honours.

The excitement slowly died down as they received the award, which was a silver coloured trophy, slightly smaller than the first place trophy, and a plaque to hang on the wall in the band room along with their other awards. Although the five year streak was broken, they still placed among worthy opponents. That seemed to be the mentality most of them strived to achieve. That was, except for Gillian.

Backstage, as instruments were being dismantled and jackets were being put on, Gillian slammed her case shut with a huff and snapped the latches as loud as she could.

“Do I dare ask what’s wrong?” Amy asked, leaning against the counter with her tiny flute case in hand and music folder under one arm. Harry was standing behind her, trying not to make it too obvious that he could hear everything they were saying.

“Were you not there on stage just now? We lost. For the first time,” Gillian grumbled.

“Sure, but we got second place. That’s still pretty good.”

“But it’s not a win, now, is it?” Something about the way she said it made Amy pause to narrow her eyes. Gillian was too busy sulking to notice.

“Not everything you do has to be perfect, you know. It’s not all about you,” she said simply with a scowl before abruptly turning away to find Casey.

Gillian only watched her leave for a second before shaking her head and collecting the rest of her things. When she pulled her case off the countertop to leave, she realized Harry was staring right at her. He didn’t even realize he was staring at her until they met eyes. Gillian didn’t say anything, just looked him up and down with a neutral expression.

“You played really well out there,” Harry broke the uncomfortable silence. “Especially your solo.”

Cracking a slight smile, Gillian diverted her eyes to say “thanks,” while trying to come up with a response. “You and Liam nailed the melody in the last song.”

“Thanks. Took a lot of lunch rehearsals to get it right.”

Neither knew how to proceed from here. When they broke up, it was implied that they’d still remain friends, but everyone knows it never turns out that way. Especially with how quick Harry moved on and Gillian witnessing it all over the last few days. For their first post-break-up conversation _not_ to be awkward would be surprising.

“Well, I should probably get back to L- the bus,” Harry stuttered, realizing it’d be best not to bring Louis up no matter how okay with everything she claimed to be. When she didn’t say anything else, Harry took a step away.

“Wait,” she stopped him with a soft voice. He glanced over his shoulder at her. Her expression was earnest when she said, “You seem a lot happier lately. It’s really nice to see.”

She smiled again, warmer and more sincere than he’d ever seen.

“I am.”


	7. Encore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact before we get into the end: this fic was originally a fake relationship trope when I first started writing it in the ol' Word document. Honestly, thank God I changed my mind on that because that would've been a train wreck. (I still have that file saved. It's just a mess.)
> 
> So this is it! I know this fic probably felt short for those of you following it, but I've been working on it since May so to be posting the last update is a sigh of relief. Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and commenting and all that! Waking up to those nice messages sometimes really is encouraging to see.  
> Now that H & L have gotten their shit together in this fic, I figure it's going to be my turn to do the same with this next story coming in the new year. 
> 
> But until then...

Two days after returning home from the band trip, Harry and Louis found themselves on the floor of the first tier in the band room, sheet music spread out around them and Miss Hammond blaring Queen over the speakers as she worked from her desk. They were serving their lunch time detentions, meaning Hammond was getting free labor in exchange for them not having to stay after school for a real detention.

In his hands, Louis had a stack of one of their pieces from the festivals. Most of the students already handed their music back so Louis had to organize by section and place them back in their folder. Harry was in charge of the old Christmas music, which was far more extensive than one would think. No one had organized those folders since Hammond first started working there over seven years ago.

The days that followed since their return home were most simply summed up as bliss. Harry and Louis spent every moment of it together, which was not so different than usual. Except this time they were _together_ together. And sleepovers at Harry’s house now included a lot more cuddling, amongst other things…

“Hey,” Harry spoke up as he watched Louis finish counting a stack to make sure he had the right amount of papers, “You’re wearing your glasses today.”

Louis pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose as if to confirm that yes, he was wearing his glasses. They were small and rectangular with thick black frames. He hated wearing them in public. He always thought they made him look too young and never suited his face quite right. No one outside his family and close friends even knew he wore glasses.

“Forgot to get a refill on my contacts and I dropped one down the sink this morning,” he informed Harry as nonchalantly as he could.

“You look really good with them on, you know,” Harry complimented, knowing it would be brushed off anyway.

“Yeah? Thanks. I think they’re starting to grow on me. Just gotta get used to the lens being there when I need to rub my eye or something,” he laughed before bringing his attention back to the task at hand.

Harry would be lying if he didn’t say he was surprised at the response. If there was one thing Harry knew Louis to be self-conscious about, it was his glasses. For him to be more comfortable with them made Harry proud even though he’d never say that to Louis’ face. He’d just claim it was no big deal and nothing to be proud of. But to Harry, Louis building up his confidence was worth a celebration, no matter how silent he’d have to make it.

In this case, he did it by taking Louis’ hand every so softly and rubbing his thumb across the back of it. Louis met his gaze with a simple smile that reached his eyes, but didn’t say anything. Hammond, on the other hand, was glancing up at them from her desk with a knowing look. She remained quiet all the same.

The bell signaling the end of lunch came, meaning the band students would start to file in for class shortly. After a festival, Hammond generally gave a few days break from playing to work on music theory worksheets that always seemed to get easier as the years went on. When Mason walked in, he informed Hammond that he had finished editing the short film of their trip and wanted to show it to the class. This sparked a mixture of excitement and uncertainty through the class, who was still recovering from the breaks of their years-long winning streak.

Liam, Zayn, and Niall had joined Louis and Harry at their spot on the first tier where they had front row seats when the opening credits started rolling on the projector screen. Caleb stood off to the side, leaning against a book shelf so he could observe the reactions to his work.

The first shot was a sped-up video of everyone loading onto the bus while the name of their school above the words “Band Trip” faded onto screen with the year just below it. After that were a few short clips of them rehearsing in the band room, cars passing by outside the bus window, a close up of Louis laughing at something with Niall smirking behind him. Louis had no idea Mason was recording him at that time. You had to be careful around that kid when he had his camera out.

Nothing really got too interesting until they reached the team building race they had to do on the first day of camp. Everyone got to see how ridiculous they looked while trying to navigate the obstacle course while blindfolded. Mason was even in a few of the shots, meaning he must’ve had Miss Hammond get some footage while he participated.

As the video played, the group laughed and joked along, making comments and elaborating on the moments that would hopefully become lifelong memories. When the video of Harry missing the net during the obstacle course played, Louis barked out a laugh and even Harry himself was cracking up at his own expense.

Somehow, Mason managed to capture everything from the performances to the chicken fights in the pool, to even personal moments like light bickering and relaxing around the fire. Harry, Zayn, and Niall tried to play off like they didn’t notice themselves in the background walking off to get high behind the mess hall. This didn’t work well when Amy teasingly shook Niall’s shoulder, knowing exactly where they were off to. She had definitely sampled those pot cookies herself at one point.

Around ten minutes passed and they were finally nearing the end. The final scenes were backstage before and after the performance and them glooming over their loss, but quickly switched to the clip of the last lag of the bus ride when the band was forced to take shelter in a truck stop diner. The footage was simple, friends laughing together and enjoying the last bit of the weekend they had left as much as they could. When the credits rolled, they were over the off-pitch sing-along of Bohemian Rhapsody that occurred early on in the trip.

You had to give the guy credit, Mason sure knew how to capture a moment and bring a group of people together. Without anyone knowing it, he had been their glue all along. He even passed out DVDs for each of them. Not one person didn’t take a copy.

The rest of class was supposed to be meant for working on theory, but it turned into more of a socializing period. Miss Hammond didn’t seem to mind and kept the music going over the speakers. When the bell rang for next block, she called Louis over to her desk.

“I’ll meet you in Chem, okay?” Louis told Harry, who nodded as he left the room.

“Louis,” Miss Hammond started, with a mischievous grin on her face, “I have a preposition for you that I hope you’ll consider.”

 

Hastily, Louis pounded on Harry’s front door with the back of his hand that was carrying a bottle of white wine. The other was holding a bag of fast food cheeseburgers that Louis bought far too much of. When Harry answered, he was wearing baggy joggers and a tight white shirt with his curls an adorably fluffy mess.

“What’s going on?” he asked, looking at Louis’ hands.

“Is Anne home?”

“No, she’s at wor-”

“Perfect. Follow me.”

Harry didn’t have to ask any questions. He already knew Louis was going to lead him up to the roof. Whenever he showed up with a bottle of some kind of alcohol, there was never an alternate outcome.

They walked out only a few steps until they were on the flattest part of the roof and Louis signaled for Harry to sit down across from him. He pulled out six wrapped burgers and put them in a pile between them before pouring the containers of chips loosely into the paper bag.

“Shit, I forgot to grab drinking cups,” Louis muttered, looking around himself as if they would magically appear next to him.

Harry unscrewed the bottle and took a small sip of the familiar cheap wine. It wasn’t like either of them would be able to tell the difference between that and something more expensive anyway. “Have we ever needed drinking cups?”

“You’ve got a point,” Louis spoke over a mouthful of chips.

“Just try not to let it roll off the roof this time.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Harry reached for the chips to take a handful, but Louis was quick to slap his hand away.

“Not so fast. Don’t think I forgot about your health kick.” Louis reached into the bag once more and pulled out a small container of salad. “Complete with ranch dressing and everything. The lettuce looks just as disgusting as it did in that diner.”

“Oh my gosh! You remembered!” Harry brought a hand to his chest to mock flattery in a performance only Louis could imitate and took the container from Louis’ hands. “Wow this looks really great, but I think I’ll stick with the chips this time around.”

“Are you sure? It’s probably only like three days old. Maybe even four if you’re lucky.”

“I’m starting to think my diet of exclusively rubbish is something I’m going to stick with for a while.”

“Sounds great to me,” Louis said as he took a large bite into one of the cheeseburgers.

As they ate, there was hardly a moment of silence. That morning, they just finished the last of their exams and were officially free from school obligations for the summer. The feeling wasn’t much different from knowing they still had to attend school regularly. For Harry, it was most likely because school wasn’t quite over for him yet as he would be starting university in the fall. Louis’ plans were slightly different.

“Do you know what today is?” Louis asked after swallowing the last bite of his second burger.

“The 19th of June?”

“Well yes, but not what I meant.”

“Our own personal independence day?”

“Try again.”

Harry thought hard for a moment, but besides finishing their exams, there was nothing significant about this day that he could remember. “Save me the suspense?”

“It’s our two month anniversary.” Louis’ mouth curved up in a smile. Harry did the calculations quickly in his head to check if the days lined up.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. But technically an anniversary is a yearly celebration so really this is just a two month-iversary.”

Louis narrowed his eyes and his smile turned into a half-hearted laugh. “Really?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“But you can call it whatever you want to call it, babe.”

Harry leaned forward to peck the corner of his mouth. He then crumpled up the used wrappers into balls, forgetting that they were sitting on a slanted roof. Three of the balls of rubbish rolled right to the ground, but Harry couldn’t care less. He’d pick them up in the morning.

When the rest of the food was finished, Louis stuffed all of the extra wrappers into the paper bag and threw it back through the open window. He made sure to mention it was a much better place for it than the front lawn.

The night air was warm in the coming summer months, enough that not even a jumper was needed to sit outside. The sky was mostly clear, but the stars were dim from the city lights. The two boys were laying on their backs now, Harry looping his arm around Louis’ so they were still touching. Not long later was Louis leaning over Harry with one leg in between Harry’s knees and their mouths attached. It was their two month anniversary, after all.

“Can we please go down to my room?” Harry asked between lazy kisses.

“Yeah,” Louis said without thinking, not breaking the rhythm they created. Another minute passed.

“I meant, like, now,” Harry urged.

Slowly, Louis pulled away, but remained close. His hands were on either side of Harry’s head, holding himself up on his knees. Harry’s eyebrows were knitted together in concern, but Louis was quick to brush the concern away.

“I have some news to tell you,” Louis didn’t have to speak much louder than a murmur. “Good news,” he assured. He let most of his body weight fall to one side so he could lift a hand. At this point, he was practically laying on top of Harry, one of Harry’s hands at the small of his back and the other holding his waist.

“What’s the news?” Harry asked in an unsure tone.

“When Hammond wanted to talk to me the other day, it was about an opportunity she thought I might be interested in. Her bother is a musician as well. He owns a music shop and asked her if she had any students that would be interested in working for him. She said she thought of me immediately.”

“That’s fantastic, Lou!” Cheered Harry with a wide grin.

“That’s not even the best part. The shop is in London.” Harry’s eyes were growing wider. “It’s near enough that I’ll be able to stay with my aunt but, Harry, we’ll both be living in London!”

Harry wordlessly pulled him down into a hug, closing his eyes and running his fingers through the back of Louis’ hair. “I love you, baby. I’m so happy for you,” he said, voice muffled by Louis’s shoulder.

“I love you too.” After holding the embrace a bit longer, he sat up again slightly.

“This is going to be so great! We can go on proper dates regularly, hang out at each other’s place whenever we want. We won’t have to have our relationship over the phone!”

“Or pay for train tickets back and forth,” Louis added, just as happily.

“Are you still taking those online classes?” asked Harry.

“Already signed up. Have you registered in your classes for your first semester?”

“Just have to hit submit.”

It was funny to think that only three months ago, the two of them were sitting in this exact same spot, their lives in shambles with only each other to help clean it up. Harry’s love life was a mess and Louis’ whole life, it seemed, was a disaster. Now, having figured a lot more of them out, Louis’ problems didn’t seem as big as they felt at the time. He was also in a much better place at this moment than he was at the time. Especially with Harry by his side.

He still didn’t have Harry completely- whatever that meant- and didn’t think he ever would. As time went on, they would exchange parts of themselves and choose what to share with each other. This big ‘switch’ from friendship to relationship wasn’t really a switch at all, it turned out. It was more of a progression. But he’d never lose Harry completely, either. That he knew. After so long, Louis was pretty sure they were stuck together for the long run.

“I love you,” Louis said again, just to remind Harry. He wouldn’t want him to forget of course.

“I love you too. Like, a lot.”

“I’d hope so.”

Louis leaned down again for a kiss, long and slow. He wanted to remember this moment. If he could carve it in his brain so it would never escape, he would. For the rest of his life, he hoped he could feel half as elated as he felt right now. The world was his and Harry’s to conquer. Together.

“I was serious about going to my room, by the way,” Harry paused to say.

“Right behind you.”


End file.
